Artifice
by It Belongs In A Museum
Summary: Moving in with aunt Natalie and cousin Lydia was supposed to be a fresh start. But the way Gwen saw it, she was just getting away. Away from the pompoms she used to carry, from the pretentious mean girls and snide jocks. Beacon Hills High had to be better than Devenford Prep, right? Except there are monsters in the dark and apparently your past always catches up with you. Liam/OC.
1. A Not-So-Fresh Start

**Copyright Disclaimer: Me no own Teen Wolf. If I did I wouldn't have so many issues finding a place I can afford in the big NYC.**

**Okay, I hope you enjoy!**

Chapter 1 – A Not-So-Fresh Start

How was it that schools ended up looking the same? It was like some supremely boring adults had gotten together at the beginning of time and agreed on a particular set of designs that would suppress all sense of creativity and instantaneously make everyone under the age of 30 want to fall asleep. It didn't matter if it was some fancy prep school or some low-budget public school, at the core all schools were the same. They all had those laminate desks that for some reason insisted on masquerading as wood, the checkered tile floors, and the blandly beige walls. And then there were the teachers. At one point they had probably been all fresh-faced and ready to shape the crap out of some lives, but years of apathetic teenagers had slowly turned them into alcoholic shells of their former selves.

The one thing that bothered her the most, though, was the posters. They were all so upbeat, trying to convince the students that, if they took their studies seriously, they would achieve some sort of greatness. Success in school translates to success in life. That was the myth they perpetuated. Study hard, get good grades, and the world would treat you well. Well that's not how life worked. Shit happened, and there was nothing you do about it. It was all chaos—entropy.

Plus for some reason the people in those posters were always smiling and always seemed to be wearing high-waisted pants. That was just plain weird.

This was not how she wanted to spend her Saturday morning. She could probably think of a few worse places to be—the DMV, the dentist, a community theater rendition of 'Cats'—but as far as she could tell there weren't a lot of them. The whole situation was more than slightly ridiculous. Winter break hadn't even ended yet, but here she was, sitting outside the principal's office. And she hadn't even done anything wrong yet. Hell, winter break hadn't even ended yet—the first day back was technically tomorrow. Sure, it was more than likely that she would eventually be sent there for some reason or another, but for now it seemed completely unnecessary.

Slouching low in her plastic, bright orange chair, the girl stared at her hands as she picked idly at her fingernails. The bright blue polish that covered them was flaking off easily. She wasn't sure why she even bothered painting her nails any more. The manicure never stayed intact for more than 48 hours.

"Gwen, you don't need to be so nervous."

Gwen looked up from her nails at the woman sitting in the chair next to her. Her aunt was staring at her with sympathy in her eyes. To the observer, the two of them probably made quite the strange pair. The two of them did actually look quite a bit similar. They shared the same light brown hair and straight nose. They even shared the same strong chin and angular jaw line. Actually, Gwen looked more like Aunt Natalie than her own mother. It was in the presentation that the two of them differed heavily. Aunt Natalie had always been a proper-looking sort of woman. Her hair was always blow-dried and tidy, her makeup light and fresh, and her clothes carried a neat elegance. Gwen didn't have that same softness. Her hair was frizzy and tangled, barely contained in her ponytail, her makeup was dramatic and dark, her clothes were ripped and rumpled, and she always had those headphones around her neck lest she need to block out any irritating conversation happening around her. Clearing her throat a bit, she lifted her feet off the ground, crossing her legs and tucking her combat boot-clad feet underneath her. "What do you mean?" she asked with a shrug. "Why would I be nervous?"

Aunt Natalie gave her a knowing look and shook her head. "You're transferring schools," the woman said, looking at her pointedly. "That's bound to be stressful."

"I don't look at it as 'transferring' so much as 'trading up'," Gwen replied. "I'm not nervous."

"Really?" Aunt Natalie asked, quirking a skeptical eyebrow. Her eyes drifted down to where Gwen's hands were folded in her lap and then back up again, giving her a pointed look. "Then why are you destroying you nails right now?"

"Oh, you mean this?" Gwen chirped, lifting a hand in the air and waving her fingers to display the botched paint job. "This isn't nerves. It's boredom. This whole thing is taking a bit longer than I expected."

Aunt Natalie sighed and wrapped an arm around Gwen's shoulders, pulling her into a light, one armed hug that was probably meant to be comforting. "Well, there's a lot of paperwork for the office to get through," she sighed. "All this has been pretty last minute, you know."

"Yeah, I know," Gwen grumbled bitterly. "It's just…the principal's office isn't exactly where I saw myself spending my last few hours of freedom before school starts up again. Lydia's off 'camping' or whatever with her friends and I….I am here. In the belly of the beast. In the ninth circle of hell."

"Hey, hey, hey," Aunt Natalie said, swatting gently at Gwen's shoulder. "Need I remind you that _I_ teach here?"

"I know," Gwen said, looking up at the woman with wide, innocent eyes. "And your kindness, charm, and effortless beauty are why your class is probably only going to be like the first circle of hell. Maybe even limbo if you flash that winning smile."

"Stop it, Gwen," her aunt said through an affected laugh, placing her hand over her heart and feigning embarrassment. "You're making me blush."

"I'm just trying to butter you up before the school year starts," Gwen sighed. "You know, ingratiate myself before you start grading my papers."

"Yes, well flattery will get you everywhere," Aunt Natalie sighed. "And so will chocolate."

"Are you suggesting bribery?" Gwen exclaimed. She let her mouth fall open in a theatrical gasp. "How unprofessional! How _unethical_! I like it."

Aunt Natalie just let out a light chuckle and turned back to the issue of 'Vanity Fair' she had in her lap. Gwen on the other hand reached into her pocket and pulled out her iPod, turning up the volume so music blasted out the headphones around her neck like tiny speakers. For the most part she just stared out in front of her, wrinkling her nose at the various motivational posters that papered the wall outside the principal's office, trying to inspire whichever delinquents were forced to sit in that chair. But every once in a while she let her eyes flicker to the woman sitting next to her.

Through most of her life, Gwen had felt like she was born into the wrong family—or to the wrong sister. It had only taken one family Christmas with the Martins when she was five to figure it out. She could still remember peeking around the corner and into her cousin Lydia's room to find Aunt Natalie brushing her daughter's hair. Gwen's mother never brushed her hair. That was the moment she realized the difference. Real mothers brushed your hair and read you bedtime stories. Real parents were _there._ That was the first time she could remember wishing she lived with the Martins instead of alone in that big, empty house. And it only took ten years and the accident for that wish to become a reality.

Letting out a light sigh, Gwen looked down at her hands again, but this time it wasn't to resume the insistent destruction of her manicure. She opened her left fist and stared down at the lines of her palm. Between those typical creases there were other lines—thin and white. The scars had almost faded, but the traces of them were still there. A reminder of past pain that was still bleeding into the present. Using her right index finger, Gwen traced along those lines. It was a nervous habit she had picked up since it happened.

The car crash. It seemed so far away and so close at the same time. It had to have been about six months ago now. Her parents were out of the country again in one of those exotic places whose names began with one the high-value scrabble letters. Her best friend Liv had showed up with her learner's permit, her mom's new boyfriend's Cadillac, and the promise of a fun night and cute boys. It had taken some persuading—they had only planned on watching romcoms and eating ice cream until they made themselves nauseous—but Liv had convinced her. Liv always convinced her. They didn't even make it half way to the bowling alley before that car ran red light and slammed into the driver's side door. She had ended up with two surgeries and three months of physical therapy. Liv…..Liv hadn't been quite so lucky.

All of the sudden a slightly larger, slender-fingered hand, manicure still entirely intact, covered hers and wrenched her thoughts away from that night. Aunt Natalie had put her magazine away again and was staring at her with that same sympathetic look. It would have been annoying if she wasn't so genuine about the situation. "Hey," she said gently, giving Gwen's hand a firm squeeze. "I know your parents wanted to be here."

"Yeah," Gwen agreed with a bitter laugh. "They just wanted to be in Dubai more."

At that, Aunt Natalie's face screwed up into a pained expression, regret etched into every line of her face. It wasn't like she could deny it. Her sister and brother-and-law had left as soon as Gwen's physical therapy had concluded, and things hadn't really changed from there. Gwen was back to living in that huge house with only the caretaker Sabina for company. But given that Sabina was from Brazil and spoke only Portuguese, it wasn't exactly the recipe for great conversation. Though on the plus side Gwen had picked up more than a little bit of Portuguese herself. Most of it was swear words. It was only when the problems in school started that Gwen's parents had seen fit to change something about her living situation. Changing it in the way that had the smallest impact on their jet-setting life-style, of course.

Aunt Natalie gave Gwen's hand another firm squeeze. "Lydia and I are both really glad that you've come to stay with us. You know that right?"

Gwen smiled and squeezed back. "Thank you."

All of the sudden the door swung open, revealing a tall, thin man with a thick file under his arm. He seemed to be the type who, under normal circumstances, probably would have had ramrod straight posture and a professional demeanor. Today, though, he seemed a bit frazzled, his suit rumpled and eyes weary. "Mrs. Martin, Ms. Gilroy," he said nodding at the two of them. "So sorry to have kept you waiting. I'm afraid you found us at a bit of chaotic time. We've had to deal with some….faculty changes and there have been several last minute transfers to process."

"No problem at all," Aunt Natalie said getting to her feet. She turned to Gwen, gesturing for her to stand as well. "Gwen, this is Mr. Allen. He's the vice principal here at Beacon Hills."

"Nice to meet you," Gwen said.

The man extended a hand which she took, giving it a firm shake. "Likewise," he said with a nod acknowledgement before turning back to her aunt. He removed the file from under his arm and lifted in her direction. "I have all of the paperwork that needs to be dealt with here, if you'll just follow me." Then he faced Gwen again. "Your aunt and I can take care of all this. In the mean time I've set up an appointment with our guidance counselor Ms. Morell. She can help ease the transition—give you advice, get you settled. Her office is three doors down the hall."

Mr. Allen stepped out of the doorway and extended an arm, gesturing for Aunt Natalie to move through it. The woman paused in the doorway for a moment and shot Gwen one last encouraging smile, mouthing the words 'good luck' before striding through. Gwen let out a light snort and turned on her heel, walking down the hall in the direction Mr. Allen had indicated. She came to a stop in front of a glass-paneled door. Through it she could a woman sitting at a desk, scribbling some notes. She lifted a hand and rapped her knuckles three times against the glass. At the sound, the woman raised her head and waved her in.

"You must be Gwen Gilroy," the woman said, stowing the papers she was working on. "Please, take a seat."

Gwen unslung the bag from over her shoulder and dropped it on the floor before collapsing into the green, padded chair opposite her. The woman flipped the last folder shut and pushed it to the side of her desk before folding her hands on the surface and staring at Gwen evenly. She was pretty, with flawless light brown skin and shiny, dark hair, but those weren't the features Gwen dwelled on. Her eyes were what drew focus. They were sharp and intelligent, more calculating than sympathetic which wasn't exactly typical of guidance counselors. Which meant that Gwen was probably going to like her.

"Welcome to Beacon Hills High School," the woman said, offering up a polite smile. "I'm Ms—"

"Ms. Morell," Gwen finished for her, returning the smile. "The school's resident head-shrinker. So I've heard."

The woman cocked her head to the side curiously, but didn't appear to be offended in any way. In fact, the tight smile on her face widened slightly. "Actually, according to the sign out there my official title is 'school counselor'. And 'French teacher'."

"Ah, a woman who wears many hats," Gwen said, tipping an imaginary hat in Ms. Morell's direction. "I salute you."

Ms. Morell let out a light snort. "I appreciate that. Give me one moment while I find your file."

As Ms. Morell moved towards the file cabinet, Gwen took the opportunity to survey her surroundings. Yawning widely, she sank low in her chair and let her eyes scan the room. Mostly it was all your standard fair. A few potted plants, and few photos of friends and family, nothing all that extraordinary. But then Gwen's eyes fell on the bookshelf behind the woman's desk. For the most part the books were pretty innocuous, but there wedged between her French-English dictionary and the _Vis-à-vis: Beginning French_ textbook was a copy of the _DSM-IV_. If her memory served correctly, which it always did, that book was also known as the _Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders._ Yup. 'School counselor' was definitely a loose term.

After rifling though a few files, Ms. Morell grabbed a folder and pushed the cabinet door shut before returning to her seat. "So," Gwen sighed out, looking at the woman pointedly, "do all of the transfers here have a one-on-one session with the 'school counselor', or am I just special?"

Ms. Morell pressed her lips in a thin line and narrowed her eyes slightly, like she was trying to analyze each sentence coming out of Gwen's mouth. It was a few more moments before she spoke again. "Your parents want you to be happy here," she said finally. "They were eager to make sure that your transition to Beacon Hills was as painless and convenient as possible."

A bitter, involuntary snort forced its way out of Gwen's nose. "Eager?" she demanded, her eyebrows shooting up so high they practically disappeared into her hairline. "How eager were they exactly? Were they 'new gym' eager or 'new wing of the library' eager?"

Generally Gwen's disillusioned and blasé attitude when it came to her parents made other people a wee bit uncomfortable. Like they weren't quite sure how to react. It was usually followed by an awkward laugh or some shifting in their seat. But Ms. Morell just smiled evenly. "You know what?" she said, leaning in a bit, almost conspiratorially. "I think the lacrosse team got a donation of all new equipment."

"Seriously?" Gwen scoffed. "That's it? Man, Brad and Karen are getting kind of cheap."

At that Ms. Morell sat back in her seat, continuing to study Gwen carefully. "Well, Gwen, I'm not here to talk about Brad and Karen. I'm here to talk about you. So shall we begin?"

Gwen gave a casual shrug and nodded in agreement. "By all means. Proceed. Crack open that file."

Ms. Morell flipped the folder open and began to skim the contents, tracing the words with her fingers as her eyes darted across the page. "Alright," she mused under her breath. "Gwendolyn Gilroy. You're transferring here from Devenford Prep. It looks like you have perfect grades, exceptional proficiency in mathematics….." Her words trailed off as she continued to read. "Past extracurriculars include student government, theater, academic decathlon—" And then the words just stopped. The woman frowned at the page and then glanced back up at Gwen with a questioning expression on her face. Her eyes flicked up and down Gwen's form, taking in her appearance from the black combat boots to the frayed tank top and dark eye-liner. "Pep squad?" she demanded, clearly more than slightly skeptical.

"Ah, yes." Gwen straightened in her seat and smiled sheepishly at her counselor. "About that…back in middle school I was clinically diagnosed with 'excessive pep'," she said using air quotes. "It caused a bit of a scare, but don't worry. They caught it early on and with two years of therapy it has since been entirely removed from my system. I am entirely pep-less. Totally devoid of pep. No pep whatsoever."

Ms. Morell stared at Gwen blankly for a few moments, but for the most part seemed to remain unfazed. Turning back to the file, she continued to read. "It says here that you're a classically trained pianist. A good one—you've placed first in multiple recitals. Beacon Hills has a good orchestra. It looks like you'd be a great addition."

"Afraid not," Gwen replied bluntly. She lifted up her left arm and tugged the sleeve of her leather jacket down far enough to reveal the raised, knotted scar running down the length of her forearm. "Damage to the extensor apparatus of the hand," she said, waggling her fingers in a morbidly cheerful wave. "Doctors say I only have about 80% motility in my fingers, so that means no piano for me."

For the first time since Gwen walked in that room, sympathy showed on Ms. Morell's face, and it made her groan internally. She didn't want any sympathy. She had no use for it. It wasn't like other people feeling sorry for changed anything or made her situation any better. In reality it just ended up being a giant pain in the ass. Unfortunately, 'pain in the ass' looked like the direction this conversation was taking. "I must be difficult for you," Ms. Morell said in that benignly understanding tone shrinks used when they were trying to get you to open up. "To be unable to do something you love—that must be hard."

Gwen couldn't help but roll her eyes at that one. It was such a boringly predictable move, trying to establish a connection like that. All the therapists tried it. It started out with 'it must have been hard' and progressed to 'how does that make you feel?' and soon enough they were expecting you to spill your guts to them while they scribbled down notes on their clipboard. Gwen hated therapists. Every word they spoke was carefully crafted, and that sympathy they always showed? It was never genuine. It was a move—a tactic. It was fake.

"Yeah," Gwen said snappishly. "It's a real tale of woe. I should sell my life rights—it'll make a great made-for-TV movie." She gestured across the desk at the woman with an expression of realization on her face. "Hey! You could be played by Zoe Saldana! Who do you think would play me?"

Ms. Morell didn't respond immediately, but Gwen got the feeling she wasn't going to get an answer to her question. She also got the impression that Ms. Morell realized that that tactic wasn't going to work. The woman rested her elbow on the desk and propped her head up on her hand, peering at Gwen like she was staring at an amoeba through a light microscope. It was almost as if she could see through Gwen—through her skin—and was analyzing all the bits inside, the levers and gears that made her tick. Then she flipped the folder shut, folding her hands on top of that small stack of paper. "How about we just put the file aside for a moment? I like to get to know my students outside of what's been written in their files. I find that the people doing the writing can be a bit biased."

"Ooooookay," Gwen drawled out, frowning a bit in confusion. "So what to you propose?"

"A conversation," Ms. Morell replied. "Simple as that. I ask a question, you answer it."

"That's not a conversation," Gwen quipped back. "It's an interrogation."

"It's an inquiry," Ms. Morell elaborated, bobbing her head a bit as she spoke. "But we're not here to have a semantic argument."

"Speak for yourself. I love semantic arguments." The look she received in response was not appreciative, so Gwen threw her hands in the air in surrender. "Fine. Shoot."

"Why did you want to transfer to Beacon Hills?"

"The cafeteria food," Gwen answered immediately. "I hear you guys have great tater tots. What's next?"

Apparently that response was not satisfactory. It was a deflection, a non-answer—both Gwen and Ms. Morell were highly aware of that fact. At first Gwen thought that Ms. Morell was going to be angry or frustrated with her blatant efforts to dodge the questioning, but she wasn't. In fact she looked like she had learned something. "Perhaps I'm asking the wrong question," she mused idly.

"And what's the right question?"

"Why did you want to leave Devenford Prep?"

Suddenly, the whole atmosphere in the room changed. Gwen felt her hands clench up into fists, the right one considerable tighter than the left. On the surface it was a simple question. It was almost an innocent question. But the answer cut straight to the middle of everything that was going on in her life. They were straying far too close to the things she didn't want to talk about. The things that, as far as she was concerned, were nobody's business but her own. And Gwen had absolutely zero intention of opening up to a complete stranger. "I thought you were just supposed to help me pick out electives and stuff like that."

When Ms. Morell noticed Gwen close herself off, her posture changed as well. She leaned back from desk and folded her arms across her chest, effectively abandoning her attempts at subtlety as she tried to draw Gwen into conversation. It was time for the direct approach. "Miss Gilroy, as I said before, I am here to make your transition to Beacon Hills as easy as possible," Ms. Morell said in an explanatory tone that somehow managed to be both soft and harsh. "An important part of that is to know what you're looking for—what you want. When I look at your file, it's like I'm reading about two completely different people. On one hand you've been described as outgoing, engaging, charismatic, friendly, and then on the other I see words like closed-off, anti-social, irritable. That's a pretty significant difference."

"Yeah, well I went through a bit of a rough patch," Gwen snapped. "I'm sure you can read all about it in that file."

"I could," Ms. Morell said, nodding in agreement. "I could find every detail in here. But I'm not concerned what happened. I'm more concerned with what is going to happen—what you want to happen. So tell me Gwen, what do you want?"

"Other than for this conversation to be over?" Gwen blew out a long breath and her eyes flicked up to stare at the ceiling, feigning a pensive expression. "I gotta say," she said, shaking her head a bit. "That's big question. I want…a pony, I want world peace—you've always gotta say you want world peace—and I want a satisfying conclusion to the TV show 'Lost'. That ending sucked. I want a new one."

"Why do you want to change schools?" Ms. Morell insisted, looking at her pointedly. "Why do you want to leave everything behind? Your friends—"

"_Liv_ was my friend," Gwen snapped. She knew that she shouldn't. She knew that as soon as those words left her mouth she was revealing something—giving Ms. Morell something to use—but she couldn't help it. It was instinct. And she regretted that instinct immediately. As soon as the name has left her lips, Ms. Morell was looking through that file again, trying to find new angles.

"Olivia Masterson," she murmured, flipping through the pages. "She was the other girl involved in the accident? The one who died?" She looked to Gwen for a response, but apparently the defiant expression on Gwen's face was enough to confirm the statement. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Yeah, everybody is," Gwen hissed. "Can we move on, please?"

Ms. Morell didn't respond immediately. "Gwen," she finally said. "She might have been your best friend, but that doesn't mean she was your only friend."

"She was the only one that mattered," Gwen snapped. "She wouldn't have bailed like those assholes."

"You mean the other students at Devenford?"

"Yeah," Gwen said, nodding like was the most obvious thing in the world. "The assholes. It's a technical term."

"In what way did they 'bail' on you?" Ms. Morell pressed.

"Are we seriously doing this right now?" Gwen let out a loud groan and let her head roll back on her shoulders so that she was staring at the ceiling. How many times was she going to have to go through this process? Why did people always want her to talk? Talking wasn't going to make any of it any better. Talking wasn't to bring Liv back. Honestly, sometimes Gwen thought life would probably be better if she just stopped talking entirely. But that didn't mean people were going to stop talking to her. She had actually tried it out. For the first two weeks after the accident, she didn't speak a single word. Not one. 'Selective mutism' the doctors called it. That's when her parents started with therapists. Lots and lots of therapists. When it came to parenting and ensuring the mental well-being of their child, Brad and Karen were big fans of outsourcing.

"You can keep avoiding the questions," Ms. Morell said in a voice that was almost bored. "The fact of the matter is that you're not leaving this room until I'm satisfied with the conversation."

A grimace covered Gwen's face, but she slowly lowered her head, bringing Ms. Morell back in her eye line. "Fine." She pulled both of her legs up, crossing them underneath her. "Everybody at Devenford…..they expected me to be what I was before accident. They expected me to be something I'm not anymore. And when I wasn't what they wanted me to be…..let's just say some of them didn't like that. Words were exchanged, lines were drawn, in one incident hair was pulled. It didn't end pretty if that's what you're asking."

"And Liv?" the woman prompted.

Gwen sighed and tugged at the end of her ponytail, winding the hair around her fingers. "Liv was the only one who didn't expect anything from me. She just knew me. She knew me better than I knew me. She used to joke that I worked too hard at being nice—that there was no way it came naturally to me. She was convinced that one day I would wake up and realize that I had been sarcastic and jaded the whole time." She lifted her arms in the air, gesturing up and down herself. "Looks like she was right."

A tiny smile pulled at the corners of Ms. Morell's lips. "She sounds like a good friend."

Gwen bit her lip and tapped her thumb against the arm of the chair as she surveyed the woman with suspicion. "The best," she murmured.

All of the sudden, her eyes began to ache again. Crap. It was happening again. Every freaking time. How was she supposed to look pissed off and apathetic—how was she supposed to be able to pretend she wasn't broken—if she kept crying. She wasn't this weak. She _wasn't_. And she wasn't going to let this woman see her cry. Gritting her teeth, she forced back the tears and stared evenly at the Ms. Morell. "Look, I just wanted to not be there anymore, so I came here. Can't that be enough?"

The silence that followed was almost deafening. Gwen waited for what felt like hours for a response. The ticking of the wall clock echoed in her ears. She glanced at it, watching the second hand move. Tick, tick, tick. All of the sudden this feeling overtook her—an irrational wave of fear. She felt like that second hand was counting down to something, and she didn't have the tiniest clue what it was counting down to. All she knew was that it made her want to sprint out of that room.

Finally, Ms. Morell exhaled sharply and nodded a bit to herself. "Alright," she murmured, looking at Gwen. "Alright. So what kind of electives are you interested in taking."

Gwen let her eyes fall shut and let out a small sigh of relief. The next fifteen minutes or so passed as one would expect a meeting with the school guidance counselor to pass. There were hints, suggestions, little bits of advice. Numerous brochures for various after school activities and 'suggested reading' lists were forced into her hands. The meeting was drawing to a close when Ms. Morell handed Gwen her schedule. "You're going to have home room and first period with Mr. Hamilton. He's your math teacher. I doubt you'll have any problems with him."

All of the sudden the phone rang, making Gwen jump in her seat a bit. Even all these months later, shrill, abrupt noises still made her heart feel like it was about to explode out of her chest. It faded quickly, though. If Ms. Morell noticed her temporary freak out, she gave no indication. She just lifted a single finger, indicating for Gwen to wait. As Ms. Morell spoke, Gwen took a couple of deep breaths and ran her hands down her face, calming herself down.

"Okay," Ms. Morell said, hanging up the phone. "It looks like your aunt is all finished in the administration office, and I believe that we've made all the progress we're going to make today."

"Hold on—today?" Gwen demanded. "As in we plan on doing this more than once?"

Ms. Morell smiled benignly, refusing to answer the question. Which, Gwen supposed, was an answer enough in itself. "You're free to go," she said, pointing in the direction of the door with her pen. "There should be another last minute transfer waiting to meet with me outside the door. Please send him in."

"Alright-y, then."

Eager to get out of there before the woman changed her mind, Gwen threw herself out of the chair and bolted out the door. Once back in the hallway, she pushed all of the fly away hairs out of her face and took a deep breath, grateful that the impromptu and altogether unwelcome therapy session had officially come to an end. It was a few seconds before she registered the tapping noise from somewhere to her left. It was the sound of a leg bouncing up and down nervously—the perennial indicator of anxiety. Her fellow transfer was having a bit of a hard time. At least they still got that motivational poster of the cat telling them to 'hang in there'. That was definitely going to help them feel better about the complete upheaval of their lives.

"Looks like you're up next," she said, still eyeing the cat in the 'Hang In There' cat suspiciously. "Try to keep your shit together, because she is a perceptive one."

As soon as the words left her mouth, the sound of the tapping stopped. Like the person had frozen in place or something. Frowning in confusion, Gwen turned towards the source of the tapping noise. But then she froze as well. For a second it felt like her brain short-circuited—like her brain was physically and psychologically rejecting the information her eyes were relaying. Sandy blonde hair, bright blue eyes, square jaw. He shouldn't be here. He wasn't supposed to be here. He was supposed to be back at Devenford Prep with all the other assholes, playing lacrosse and leaving her the hell alone. And yet here he was. Fan-freaking-tastic.

"Gwen?"

Her name sounded like a question—all high-pitched and confused. And she just stood there, eyes slightly widened, probably looking like she was concussed. Of course this was happening. Something like this had to happen. She wasn't the type of person who could catch a break. She should have expected this. Gwen raised a single hand to her head, rubbing at her forehead to stave off the headache that was beginning to form. She pressed her lips together in a humorless smile and nodded in his direction.

"Liam."

Then, without another word, she took those headphones from where they rested around her neck and lifted them to cover her ears before plodding down the hallway towards where Aunt Natalie was standing.

So much for fresh starts.

**PLEASE COMMENT/REVIEW. Sorry if I'm super-needy right now, but I'd love to know what you guys think and if I should proceed. I may or may not edit this heavily.**

**Thanks for accomodating my crazy!**

**Love,**

**Cate**


	2. Dreams, Nightmare, and New Beginnings

**Disclaimer: 'Teen Wolf' isn't mine. Shocking, right? But it's true. If there are any similarities in content or dialogue, it has probably originated with the show.**

**A huge thank you to Dadmselindistress98, 21, savingkay, SimplyKelly, kassieisa, Guest, darklou, crimson sun06, 19irene96, ruan-san, Lil Miss Sunshine14, Guest, Bai, MathaliOchlzabelle, Cassie-D1, DraxthePacifist, Bookiee, kwiseman, Guest, g, Tania, becca1130, The Lady Geek, nevershoutalex8, and MadelineT for reviewing! You guys are the best!**

Chapter 2 – Dreams, Nightmares, and New Beginnings

_"We shouldn't be doing this," Gwen trilled in a sing-song sort of voice. "We so should not be doing this." She bit her lip and peered out the window of the car at the trees as they zoomed past. All of the sudden she saw the blinking red and blue lights of a police car. Her heart leapt in her chest and she immediately sank down in her seat keeping her head ducked low so it was outside the range of the window lest a police officer glance in and see her. "Shit!"_

_Liv rolled her eyes and let out an amused snort before smacking Gwen lightly over the head. "Seriously, dude, you need to calm the hell down. You look like you're about to have a psychotic break."_

_"This is illegal," Gwen insisted, staring up at Liv with wide, slightly traumatized eyes. "You realize that this is illegal right?"_

_"Oh, please," Liv drawled out, lifting up a hand to wave theatrically at the cops as she passed them by. "It's only slightly illegal." _

_"There's no such thing as slightly illegal!" Gwen hissed. "There's 'legal' and there's 'not legal'. Stealing a car? I'm pretty sure that goes in the 'not legal' category!"_

_ "How many times to I have to tell you!" Liv groaned, banging her hand against the steering wheel for emphasis. "It's Ryan's car—it's my mom's boyfriend's car. If he didn't want me to take it, he shouldn't have left the keys in such an obvious spot. They were just sitting there next to the door, asking to be taken." _

_"By the door?" Gwen demanded, raising her eyebrows pointedly. "You mean in that bowl on the table in the foyer whose specific purpose is the holding of keys?"_

_"That'd be the one, yup." _

_Gwen scrunched up her face into an expression of disbelief and let out a small snort. Almost immediately, Liv's eyes snapped up to the rearview mirror, glowering at Gwen's reflection. "You know what—no!" she exclaimed, pointing an accusatory finger in Gwen's face. "No. I reject that judge-y expression. Ryan wants to be a man-whore gold-digger and break up my parents' marriage? Well, I want Ryan's car."_

_A low whine emanated from Gwen's mouth. She raised her head slightly, peeking out the window for any other law enforcement officers, but all she saw was the night and the trees. "We are so gonna get arrested." _

_"Ugh, stop being such a baby," Liv said with a roll of her eyes. "Seriously, you disappoint me sometimes, Gwen. If you just stopped being so scared of doing something wrong or getting in trouble, you would be such a badass. I mean you've already got a bit of an Angelina Jolie look going on with those cheekbones."_

_"Hey!" Gwen exclaimed, finally sitting up straight in her seat. "I am a badass. I'm a total badass." _

_Liv peered at Gwen out of the corner of her eyes with an expression that was more than slightly skeptical. "You're not a badass. You're student body president."_

_"That doesn't—!" _

_"I'll tell you what will make you slightly more of a badass, though," Liv barreled on, cutting off Gwen's attempts to protest. "Calming the hell down and going out with you spectacularly awesome best friend. Plus, everybody's gonna be there. Brett, Liam, Eric, Sean. I can guarantee fun. Do some bowling, flirt a bit with some lacrosse players, make out a bit with some lacrosse players….Play the field. Get it? Play the field."_

_"Yeah, Liv," Gwen said, rolling her eyes. "I got it. You are the master of the terrible pun. And I though you and Brett has a thing going on. Since when are you 'playing the field'?" _

_Liv let out a scoff and rolled her eyes before flipping her sandy blond hair over her shoulder. "What the hell do I look like? A monogamist? Please, Gwen, get your adorable little head out of your adorable little ass. Life is way too short to spend it one boy at a time. Tonight isn't about a boy. It's about boys. As a collective. Lots and lots of boys. Boys of whom you will be partaking." She snapped her fingers and pointed in Gwen's face, making sure the other girl was paying attention. "Same goes for tomorrow night. Brett's having a party, and you are going to me my date."_

_"I can't hang out tomorrow night," Gwen said with a small shake of her head. "I've already got plans."_

_"Oh my God," Liv whined, pounding a fist against the steering wheel in frustration. "If you tell me that you're studying or organizing another model UN debate, I swear to God I will scream." _

_"It's not that," Gwen mumbled evasively, folding her arms across her chest. Liv glanced at Gwen and widened her eyes a bit, her expression demanding a clear answer. Gwen let her eyes fall shut and exhaled loudly before finally giving up the information. The whole things felt like she was confessing to a crime, as ridiculous as that might sound. "Tomorrow I'm hanging out with Bethany. We're doing facials and stuff."_

_Liv immediately stuck her tongue out, physically gagging at the idea. "Ugh—gross," she exclaimed, cringing. "Why the hell would you ever agree to something like that? That sounds like the ninth circle of hell." _

_"You say that about everything," Gwen grumbled. "Dinner with your parents? Ninth circle of hell. Detention? Ninth circle of hell. Puppy parade? Ninth circle of hell. I like Bethany."_

_"Yeah, well you're not a great judge," Liv replied snappishly. "You like everybody. And Bethany Cartwell hates you." _

_Gwen's mouth dropped open, staring at Liv with a scandalized expression. "Wha—Bethany doesn't hate me! Why would she hate me? I'm a freaking delight!"_

_"Yes, you are," Liv explained, bobbing her head a bit as she spoke. "And that's why she hates you. You are just a little bit better than her at pretty much everything she cares about. You should have seen the look on her face after you beat her in that piano recital last month. She was definitely fantasizing about lighting you on fire. Mark my words, as soon as she gets the opportunity she will turn on you faster than you can say 'what a bitch'."_

_Frowning to herself and letting out a light harumph, Gwen stared out the window and watched the trees whizzing by. The headlights cast long, haunting shadows across the ground in front of her. Then, all of the sudden, she sat up straight in her seat. For a moment she could have sworn she saw something lying on the ground—a body, completely crumpled and bloodied. A body that looked a lot like her. Gwen threw herself forward, pressing her face against the glass to get a better look. But as soon as it had appeared, the image faded away into nothing. Nothing was there. Gwen sat back down in her seat and shook her head a bit. She really needed to get it together._

_All of the sudden something collided with the side of her face and fell into her lap, making her jump. She reached down and picked up the small tube, inspecting it carefully in the dim light. "Berry-licious," she read out, wrinkling her nose a little bit._

_"Put that on," Liv instructed. "Like I said, we are having fun tonight. I will not be satisfied unless some cute boy has that lip gloss smeared all over his face. That is the objective of this little excursion."_

_"Yeah, maybe for you," Gwen muttered, her voice slightly tinged with bitterness. "You're the fun, carefree, life of the party type. Me? I organize bake sales and model UN debates. I'm… I am student body president. Not the sexiest of titles."_

_"You're also on the pep squad," Liv reminded her. "You know what we do in pep squad? We wear tiny, brightly colored skirts. I'm pretty sure they conducted a poll vis-à-vis teenage boys and their attitudes towards tiny, brightly colored skirts. Turns out, all of them are in favor of those skirts."_

_"Yeah, but—"_

_"Oh my God!" Liv scoffed with a roll of her eyes. "When are you going to wakeup and realize that you are all kinds of hot. I can guarantee that at least one of those lacrosse players is into you. And not just in the 'I'd like to tap that' sort of way. I mean in the smitten kind of way. The 'I want to stay in my pajamas and watch Netflix with you' sort of way. You're just too wrapped up in your whole 'little miss perfect' routine with the grades and the extracurriculars to open your eyes an notice it."_

_"Really?" Gwen said through a skeptical snort. "And who exactly are you talking about?"_

_"I am not telling you that," Liv said, a sly smirk pulling at the corners of her mouth. "You need to figure that one out on your own, and then do something about it. Otherwise how will you ever learn?"_

_Sighing heavily, Gwen flipped down visor in front of her so she could stare into that little mirror before applying the Berry-licious lip gloss as instructed. She rubbed her lips together and smacked them a bit before inspecting her appearance. One thing was for sure—it definitely made her lips more noticeable. Which, she supposed, was the objective. Liv did always say that boys were attracted to brightly colored objects._

_"See," Liv smiled, smacking Gwen in the shoulder a bit. "Now look at that. Seriously, Gwen, you're just a little too uptight. Sometimes you need to get rid of that ponytail, shake your hair out, and live a little." _

_Then, as if to demonstrate, Liv cranked up the radio even higher and rolled down the windows. The pumping of the music and roar of the wind filled her ears. Liv stuck her and out the window, splaying out her fingers against as they whizzed down the road. A huge smile broke out across Gwen's face. Suddenly, she reached up and grabbed hold of the hair tie keeping her perfectly coiffed brown hair in that neat ponytail, ripping it out dramatically and tossing it out the window. Almost immediately, the wind blew violently through her hair, causing it to whip around and hit her in the face. It stung, but it was a nice sort of stinging feeling. It felt kind of like freedom._

_"I told you!" Liv shouted over the noise. "This is living!"_

_Gwen laughed and stuck her hand out the window as well, enjoying the feeling of the wind as it coursed through her fingers. "Man," she said, shaking her head a bit. "What the hell would I do without you?"_

_"I don't know," Liv shouted back. "But you better find out soon!"_

_A frown tugged at the corners of Gwen's lips. Her head snapped around and she stared at Liv. The girl was singing along with the music. Gwen studied the girl carefully. She looked normal enough. Her sandy blonde hair was as unruly as ever, her blue eyes had their usual sardonic glint, and her sharply arched eyebrows gave her that perennial look of skepticism, but she was happy. Gwen could tell that she was happy. But for some reason, though, that happiness made Gwen anxious. She could feel the panic building up inside of her and for the life of her she wasn't sure why. All she knew was that something very, very bad was about to happen._

_"What do you mean I better find out soon?" Gwen called out. _

_Liv looked over at Gwen and then shot her the patented Olivia Masterson smile. Gwen had often compared it to the painting of Mona Lisa. Liv smiled at you like she knew something you didn't. She smiled at you like she knew that you would never fully understand her. Usually that smile just made Gwen roll her eyes, but this time it filled her with fear. "Liv," she announced again. "Don't be coy. Save that for the lacrosse players. What do you mean I better find out soon?"_

_Letting out a light snort, Liv shook her head at Gwen in a way that was almost patronizing. "Don't you remember, Gwen?" she said with a shrug. "I'm dead."_

_There wasn't even an opportunity to process the words. As soon as the words left Liv's lips, they were replaced by the sound of a horn and the bright, white light of an 18-wheeler's headlights shone in her eyes. In that moment it felt like time stopped. The horn turned into a haunting scream that echoed in her ears. It was so loud, she felt as if they were about to start bleeding. Gwen clapped her hands over them to block out the sound, but it didn't stop the light from getting closer and closer._

_As the truck approached, Liv didn't look scared. She didn't even move. Instead she just turned to face Gwen, that knowing smile still etched into the lines of her face. Gwen stared at her with wide, terrified eyes as the girl spoke one last word._

_"Bye."_

_The light of the oncoming car grew brighter and brighter until it consumed Liv, leaving her staring at nothing but a wall of white. She couldn't see anything anymore, but she knew what was coming. Squeezing her eyes shut, she curled herself into a ball and waited._

Gwen woke with a start. That was the way she usually woke up these days. It wasn't the first time she had that dream. It had come to her at least three days a week every week since the accident. The rest of the nights she would just dream that she was falling, and the only thing below her was miles and miles of ocean. Those dreams were actually pretty boring—she knew how they were going to end—but that didn't mean she didn't get to enjoy that overwhelming sense of helplessness on the way down. Either way, though, her dreams always ended the same. As soon as impact came, whether it was from a car or from hitting the water, she would wake up to find herself thrashing violently in her bed.

_SCREECH._

"Shit!"

The almost violent sound of the alarm clock filled the room, causing her to sit bolt upright in bed. Gwen clapped her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut, her face contorting into a pained grimace as she tried to block out the noise. It sounded like someone had planted their hand on a car horn and they were refusing to let go Her sleeping and waking states melded together in a sort of disorientation that made her spin into a panic. It made her pulse skyrocket and her head ache like someone had shoved an ice pick through her skull. She grappled around blindly for a few moments until she managed to hit the snooze button, letting out a sigh of relief as the shrill noise was abruptly cut short. Finally, her hand hit the appropriate button and the sound stopped, allowing her to actually think again.

Her heart pounding in her chest like a drum, Gwen threw herself up into the sitting position and gulped down air. Every morning it felt like she was drowning. No, that wasn't it. It was more like she was being crushed. Like somebody had placed a weight on her chest and she was completely unable to breathe in. It was the beginning of her morning routine. Wake up, untangle herself from the covers, wash away that thin layer of salt left behind by the panic sweats she had in the middle of the night, and get ready for the day. Another long, pointless day. But today was different. Today was going to be even longer and even more pointless than all those other days. Because today involved school. And people.

Groaning to herself, Gwen threw off the covers and clambered out of bed. She walked straight past the clothes Lydia had insisted on laying out for her before she went 'camping' and headed to her closet. Reaching in, she grabbed the first things that looked semi decent together and tossing them on her bed—a loose-fitting white tank top, a pair of ripped black skinny jeans, a hooded military jacket, and some blue combat boots. After a smudge of black eyeliner and a bit of mascara to set off her deep brown, standoffish-looking eyes, and she was ready to go. Her appearance pretty much said 'approach at your own risk', which was essentially what she was going for. Finally, she placed her headphones around her neck, grabbed her bag, and was about to sprint out the room, but something made her pause.

The outfit Lydia had picked out for her. A year ago she would have put those clothes on in an instant—a sleeveless blue button-down that tied at the front, a high-waisted floral print mini-skirt, and a pair of cute, Mary Jane heels. It was 'sweet'. It probably bore no vague similarity to what she was wearing in her last yearbook. But she wasn't that person anymore. For years she had tried to make herself perfect—the perfect grades, perfect clothes—she had been trying to make herself into the perfect daughter because them maybe—just maybe—her parents might want to stay a little bit longer. But she was done trying to be perfect. And she sure as hell wasn't 'sweet' anymore.

Gwen knew what Lydia was trying to do, though. The girl was trying to take care of her. And honestly Gwen was trying to take care of Lydia too, even though she wasn't quite sure how. She and Lydia had never been incredibly close as cousins—their families didn't really visit each that much—but they seemed to have a weird sort of bond now. They were both victims of the same brand of tragedy. Four months after Gwen lost Liv, Lydia lost Allison, her own best friend. Neither of them said the words out loud or talked about it at all really. Talking….it hurt too much. But every once and a while Gwen would see Lydia with this look on her face—one she knew was on her own face from time to time. When it came to moments like that, they would just sit next to each other. It wasn't much, but somehow it made everything just a little bit better. Having someone there who understood what you felt—it meant something.

Once she left her room, she noticed how exceptionally quiet the house was. "Hello?"

She was met with resounding silence. A frown tugged at the corner of her lips and she began to poke around. First she stuck her head down the stairs. "Aunt Natalie?"

Again, nothing. Gwen wandered down into the kitchen. She didn't find her aunt, but she did find a pot full of coffee, a plate full of scones, and a note:

_Hi, girls! I had to get to work early to set everything up for the first day. Remember to have a good breakfast._

_Love you both!_

Smiling a bit, she grabbed a scone and shoved it in her mouth, holding it between her teeth as she walked back up the stairs. "'Ey! Lydia!" she called out, her words muffled by the scone. She grabbed hold of it and tore the rest of the scone away, chewing the large chunk left in her mouth. She walked up to Lydia's room and began banging on the door with her fist. "'Ey! It's time 'oo wake op!"

There was no response. Gwen swallowed down the scone and knocked at the door again. "Lydia?"

Slowly, she reached for the door handle and pushed the door open. It swung open with a light squeak to reveal a very empty room. The bed was still made—it hadn't been slept in at all. In each of the multiple calls that had been made over the weekend, Lydia had always insisted she would be getting back late Sunday night, but apparently the 'camping' with her friends was running a little behind schedule.

Gwen rolled her eyes as she pulled the door shut. There was a reason she kept mentally putting quotation marks around the word 'camping'. And that was because she was fully aware that Lydia was not, nor ever had any intention to 'camp', and it wasn't just because of Lydia's general avoidance of all things involving dirt. Mostly it was her friends. None of them seemed to be particularly adept at lying.

First there was Kira, the pretty Asian girl with an easy, nervous smile and impossibly shiny hair. Every time the topic was mentioned, she would widen her eyes a little bit when she used the word 'camping'. She might has well have been screaming 'this is a code word for another activity which we should not be doing'. Then there was Malia—the one with tan skin, wild brown hair, and the perpetual look of frustration on her face. When she heard the word 'camping' her eyebrows would draw together in momentary confusion, followed by a look of immediate realization, like the concept of a 'code word' was somehow new to her. Then there was Scott, the incredibly earnest one with the soulful, brown, puppy dog eyes. He was just way too serious about the whole thing. Nobody should seem that angsty about a vacation with their friends. Mostly, though, what gave it away was that hyperactive guy with smart, light brown eyes and an excess of moles. Stiles. He had a freaking map of Mexico sticking out of his backpack. Gwen didn't pretend to have the most glorious powers of deduction, but she was pretty sure they weren't going camping. They were going to Mexico. And whatever the reason they were going was, nobody was really up for sharing.

A group of criminal masterminds they were not. Or maybe they just didn't think she was paying attention. Usually when she had her headphones on, people would assume she was dead to the world and not paying the slightest bit of attention. Apparently her look of general apathy was a fairly useful detective tool. People say all kinds of things when they think you're not listening.

Not that Gwen really cared what they were doing. They could be getting drunk, watching some Mexican wrestling, buying diet pills that had been banned by the FDA—she really didn't give a shit about any of it. What she did give a shit about was the fact that Lydia was her ride. The bus was unacceptable. There were other people on the bus. She and 'other people' weren't exactly on the best of terms at the moment.

Grumbling to herself, she pulled her phone out of her purse and punched in Lydia's number. It rang and rang until it got to the voicemail message. Gwen immediately hung up and dialed the number again, pressing it to her ear and raising her eyebrows expectantly. After about four rings she finally heard the click of someone picking up. "What?!" a tired, frustrated voice said snappishly.

"Whoa," Gwen said, rocking back on her heels a bit. "Somebody woke up on wrong side of the bed this morning. Or did you sleep at all?"

A sigh emanated from the other side of the phone. "Gwen," Lydia said in a softer voice, now that she had fully realized who she was talking to. "What's going on?"

"I figured I should be asking you that question," Gwen shot back. "Where are you?"

"I'm a bit busy right now," Lydia replied, dodging the question. She seemed distracted for some reason. There was the sound of urgent conversation in the background, and Gwen couldn't quite make out the words. Lydia let out a frustrated sigh. "Hold on a second."

All of the sudden, the sound became more muffled, like Lydia had covered the receiver with her hand. Gwen jutted out her chin in frustration and waited impatiently for Lydia to pick up again. She had just begun humming the 'Jeopardy' theme when she heard the line pick up again. "Okay," Lydia's frazzled voice said. "What's up?"

"School," Gwen replied, shrugging a bit. "You know, the place we as minors are obligated to go between the approximate hours of 8:00am and 4:00pm? The place we're supposed to be in—" she pulled her phone away from her ear for a moment to check the time "—in twenty minutes."

"Right," Lydia groaned to herself. "I was supposed to drive you. I'm sorry, Gwen, I can't make it."

"But—"

"Look," Lydia barreled on, "can you just take the bus for today? I got held up."

"Somebody pulled a gun on you!" Gwen said through a theatrical gasp.

The pause that followed the question was a little longer than necessary, but eventually Lydia let out a frustrated sigh. Gwen could almost picture her clapping her hand to her forehead and shaking her head in either amusement or disappointment. "Seriously, Gwen?" Lydia groaned. "Held up in the sense that I'm running late, not in the sense that I was mugged. Stop intentionally misinterpreting things! It's annoying."

"Yeah," Gwen replied, bobbing her head a bit. "The fact that it's annoying is kind of the point."

"Ugh, why do I tolerate you?"

"For the same reason I tolerate you," the girl shot back. "Kin altruism."

"What—we're advancing our genetic code by looking out for each other?" Lydia scoffed. "That's what you're saying? How very Darwinian of you. "

"Well I was going to say that it was because we were both fundamentally awesome, but that sounded a bit douchey."

A snort forced its way out of Lydia's nose and she sighed a bit, usually an indicator of her rolling her eyes heavily. "Look, I'm sorry I'm not there, but you're just going to have to take the bus with all the other little freshmen."

"But there are other people on the bus," Gwen whined childishly, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. "You know how I feel about other people."

"That their loud, stupid, and pointless," Lydia drawled out. "Which is yet another reason why you should take the bus. You need to make some new friends. Beacon Hills is a big school. There's got to be at least one person there who's quiet, moderately intelligent, and worth your time."

Gwen blew out a long breath and plodded back down the stairs in the direction of the door. "Yeah, I'm not so sure about that," she muttered bitterly. "Like 98.4% of people are complete idiots."

"Just because they can't keep up with you doesn't mean they're idiots," Lydia murmured back.

"I know," Gwen mumbled. "But it does mean that they're predictable. And just so you know, 'predictable' is a euphemism for 'boring'." Then, all of the sudden, Gwen came to an abrupt stop. She had been standing in the foyer, glancing at her appearance one more time in the mirror at the front door, when her eyes were drawn down a bit. There it was again—the key bowl. And in that key bowl was a set of car keys. Gwen looked back up at the mirror and bit her lip, watching a mischievous smile pull at the corners of her lips.

"Lydia?" she drawled out in a sickly sweet tone. "Beautiful, clever, wonderful Lydia…."

"Yes?" Lydia queried, her tone thick with suspicion and confusion.

Gwen screwed her face up into a hopeful expression and said a silent prayer before posing her next question. "Can I borrow your car?"

"Sure."

"Really?" Gwen demanded, blinking surprise.

"No, not really!" Lydia hissed back, making Gwen nod to herself. That was more in line with the reaction she had expected. "Why the hell would you think I'd let you borrow my car?"

"I dunno," Gwen mumbled almost incomprehensibly. "Solidarity?"

"Well you're not borrowing my car!" Lydia shot back.

"That's fair, that's fair," Gwen mused, a false casualness coloring her tone. "Oh, hey, Lydia?" she said brightly. "Tell me, what's the weather like in Mexico these days?"

The silence on Lydia's end was deafening. Gwen pursed her lips a bit and looked up at the ceiling, waiting for a response to her counter-move. It took a while and a very un-Lydia-like grunt before Gwen got her response. "If there is a single scratch on my car, I will not hesitate to end you."

Gwen pumped her fist in victory. "Love you!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Lydia growled. "I love you too you little freaking con artist."

"Technically I'm a blackmailer."

"And you must be so proud of yourself," Lydia grumbled back.

Gwen opened her mouth to supply another witty retort, but before she could a giant crashing noise interrupted her, making both the girls gasp. "What the hell is that?" Gwen demanded abruptly. "Are you okay—what's going on?"

"I—it's fine," Lydia stammered out, distracted by whatever was going on in the other room. "Everything's fine. Just go to school and….and be normal. Or a close to normal as you can be."

"Lyd—"

"I'll have Stiles or Scott check in on you to make sure you're doing okay," Lydia said, rushing Gwen off the phone. "And for the love of God, do not wear the combat boots! You're going to classes, not storming the beach at Normandy."

"Wha—combat boots? Lyd—"

All she was left with was a resounding click and an aggressive quiet. What the hell were Lydia and her friends into? She had never really been the easiest person to read, but these days it was on a whole new level. Lydia was type of person it was easy to worry about and hard to take care of, mostly because she never actually opened up and talked about anything. Like ever. And especially because Gwen was pretty sure Lydia was actively hiding something from her. There were lots of hushed conversations over the phone and periods of time where she would just disappear for long stretches of time and show up looking absolutely exhausted. And now she had gone to Mexico. But that was something she could think about later. For now she had more immediate problems.

Shaking her head a bit, Gwen reoriented her thoughts and looked evenly at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was wild and tangled, her clothes were rumpled, and she had this forlorn and vaguely pissed off look in her eye. She had tried to get rid of that look, but it was just her sort of default expression now. All in all, she was going to make a terrible first impression. Good. Maybe that meant people would leave her the hell alone. Maybe she would finally be able to get a little peace and quiet. No drama, no pain, just…..just existing. That's all she wanted.

Reaching down, she grabbed the car keys out of that small bowl and turned in the direction of the door, but before she opened it she caught one last glance of her reflection. Pausing for a moment, she made eye contact with herself one last time. Her jaw twitched slightly as her face morphed into an expression of determination.

"Okay, Gwen. Let's do this."

**Okay, I hope this turned out alright. I'm trying to at least kind of integrate Gwen into the second episode of the show. It's kind of hard to demonstrate while she's still in the dark about all the supernatural stuff going on, but her first day of school happens during the second episode.**

**Also, sorry for no Liam yet. He's getting introduced to the story gradually as Gwen's past is revealed. I wanted the big focus of this chapter to be kind of introducing Liv and what she meant to Gwen. Liv was a bit of a 'wild child', but in a weird way she kept Gwen (who used to be kind of neurotic) grounded by forcing her to live her life instead of just being a spectator in it. I also wanted to demonstrate a little Lydia/Gwen time. They're kind of going to be like sisters. They'll love each other and take care of each other while simultaneously annoying the hell out of each other.**

**And guess who we meet in the next chapter? MASON! That's who. And a couple of other people too, but I'm super excited for Mason.**

**Please review/comment. Love you guys!**

**CHARACTERS:**

**Gwen Gilroy – Ella Purnell**

**Olivia 'Liv' Masterson – Liana Liberato**


	3. How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

**Disclaimer: 'Teen Wolf' isn't mine. Shocking, right? But it's true. If there are any similarities in content or dialogue, it has probably originated with the show.**

**A huge thank you to crimson sun06, darklou, Bookiee, SimplyKelly, superscaryghost, NathalieOchIzabelle, XLostxinxWonderlandX314, outlook96, masqueraderose3, Guest, Cayenne-fic, WarriorPrincessNumber42, she.s. .one, and Just Anonymous for reviewing!**

**I apologize for any grammar mistakes! It's like 2:30am where I am right now.  
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Chapter 3 – How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

The first day back at school always looked the same. Fresh off the summer or winter holidays, somewhere in the vicinity of 90% of the student body was loitering in the parking lot area, waiting till the last moment to walk through those doors and resign themselves to another four months of tests and papers and other despair-inducing activities. From there you could see small groups begin to form. Jocks were hanging out with jocks, cheerleaders with cheerleaders, nerds with nerds. Sure there was a little bit of overlap, but for the most part they stayed within their borders.

Honestly, it had taken Gwen a long time to notice those borders. For most of her life she hadn't noticed they existed at all. But then again she had been both friendly and naïve. Until high school rolled around, that is. Then she wasn't either of those things anymore. After a summer of physical therapy and the regular old type of therapy, she had shown up and there they were, plain as day. Mostly because she didn't belong to any of them anymore.

Gwen actually used to love the first day of school. Back then she used to have a place she belonged—with the other girls in the pep squad. The first day of school arrival was a process she repeated every semester. She would have just run up to them, a giant grin on her face and her high ponytail swishing back and forth against the back of her neck, and there would have been a ridiculous amount of hugging. An unnecessary amount of hugging. And then they would have giggled, laughed, and gushed about how simply _amazing _and _incredible_ their vacation was—each girl trying to outdo all the others—even though most of them were lying. But last semester things went a little differently.

That day still hovered in the back of Gwen's mind like it had been yesterday morning. Karen had dropped her off and then sped away in that peppy little BMW convertible to go shopping, leaving Gwen standing in the parking lot with nowhere to go. It sure as hell wasn't with the pep squad. The lot of them had visited her in the hospital after she got out of surgery. Once. They all had flowers and teddy bears and 'sympathy eyes', earnestly telling her about how she was going to get through this. Then they the responses to her texts and calls became slower and slower. Then they just didn't bother responding at all. Finally she was there, standing in the parking lot, watching all those girls form a small circle, giggling and laughing. Most of them didn't notice her at all, but one definitely did.

Bethany Cartwell. She looked Gwen straight in the eye and smiled. Only this time it wasn't one of those happy, 'it's nice to see you' smiles. Nope, Bethany's smile read more along the lines of 'suck it, bitch'. Turns out Liv was right about a lot of things. Bethany Cartwell hated her. A lot. All those spa days and ice cream-chick flick fests had been total bullshit. She had been biding her time to step right into Gwen's spot, and from the looks of things she had done a pretty good job of it. And in that moment, Gwen had had to make a decision. She could either slip away, tail between her legs, or she could make a point. So she smiled back, a sickly sweet expression on her face, and raised her hand, making a prominent display of her middle finger. Then that smile on Bethany's face soured, turning into a sneer. The message was pretty clear.

It's war, bitch.

Things had pretty much spiraled from there. It was a sort of cold war of snide remarks and passive aggressive actions. Books were knocked out of hands, doors were slammed in faces. Most of it was stupid stuff that Gwen would let roll off her back pretty easily. Bethany Cartwell was kind of terrible at the witty insult. But then she had gone and done something Gwen couldn't let go. Near the end of the semester, Bethany had planned a memorial for Liv. Like she had known Liv—like she had actually cared about Liv. She had made this whole display—those stupid wreaths and flowers—it was all crap that Liv would have hated.

If Gwen had ever come close to a mental break, it was that moment right there. It was like her mind had disengaged from her body. She could remember the anger though—that uncontrollable feeling of rage boiling up inside of her until She couldn't entirely recall all the details of the incident, but according to the report the principal wrote up, it had involved a lot of screaming and her ripping down every wreath and breaking every vase of flowers in the place. Brad and Karen had worked their monetary magic and gotten her off with a slap on the wrist and one detention, but at that point she had come to a decision. She was done. She was out.

Gwen grabbed her bag and climbed out of the car, slamming the door behind her, and took a deep breath. Here she was again, standing in the parking lot on the first day of school, no enemies, no allegiances, no nothing. She could see all those groups were beginning to form while she stood there alone, and that's the way she liked it. Reaching for those headphones around her neck, she pulled them up and over her ears, letting the music wash over her, and then strode through the front doors alone.

Anonymity. It was nice thing to have. Back at Devenford she had achieved a certain degree of notoriety what with her transition from pep squad captain to antisocial weirdo. People used to look at her with this expression on their faces that clearly stated something along the lines of 'what happened?'. Here nobody had anything to compare her to. She was just Gwen. Not that girl whose friend died or that girl who started screaming at Bethany Cartwell for being a phony, narcissistic ass. She was unknown. Or at least she would have been.

Liam Dunbar. The move was so close to being perfect—she was so close to leaving it all behind—but then he had to go ahead and transfer too. It wasn't like he was the worst of them back at Devenford. They had been friends before the accident—not incredibly close, but friends—and he hadn't been one of the harsh ones. Sure he had sent her some weird looks, but for the most part he left her alone. Hell, he even seemed to try and get Brett—Liv's bitter old boyfriend—to back off every once and a while. He wasn't that bad. Until the day that he was—the day that he became one of the assholes.

Oh, well. It was like Lydia said. This was a big school. They'd be able to avoid each other.

Taking one last deep breath, Gwen strode forward through the front doors of the school. As the random new girl that nobody recognized, she did get few looks from the other students, but this time they were merely curious instead of judgmental or hostile. And if there were any whispers, she didn't hear them. The earphones took care of that.

After winding her way through the halls, Gwen found her way to her locker, number 237. She quickly dialed in her combination and wrenched it open. She casually began to load in her books, fantasizing about being back in her bed. That is until she saw that square jaw and those blue eyes walking down the hallway in her direction. Gwen's eyes widened a bit and she ducked her head into her locker to hide, peeking out of the corner of her eye to see where he was going. But then he came to a stop on the opposite side of the hallway and reached for one of the locker doors.

Great. Fantastic. They had an entire freaking school with tons of hallways lined with lockers, and Liam Dunbar just had to have his locker just across the hallway from her.

Gwen's eyes fell shut and she swore inwardly, keeping her head in her locker to avoid yet another awkward encounter. When she finally opened her eyes again, she found herself staring at a note at bottom of her locker—one written with neat, flourished handwriting—sitting on top of a pair of stylish suede boots. Grumbling to herself, Gwen ripped open the note. This kind of stunt was just like Lydia. Thoughtful, but in the most inconvenient way possibly.

_Gwen,_

_Have a great first day! And please do your best to be something slightly resembling normal. You're probably wearing those horrendous combat boots despite my previous advice, so I have provided you with a more suitable option. For the love of Gucci, please wear them. When you wear those combat boots you look like you should be in one of those reality shows about pawn shops._

_Lydia_

As her eyes skimmed the note, Gwen let out a light hearted snort and rolled her eyes before folding the note back up and tucking it in the back of her locker. Sometimes she thought Lydia was a freaking ninja or something. Or that she had an army of couture-wearing clones hidden in the Martin lake house. There had to be more than one of her. How did she find the time to pull stuff like this off?

Gwen left the heeled boots at the bottom of her locker and busied herself with decorating the interior of the door with band posters and a few photographs—old ones of her and Liv and new ones of her and Lydia. Honestly, though, she was just killing time, waiting for Liam to clear out. After she finished loading in all her school supplies, she glanced over her shoulder in the direction of what was apparently Liam's locker. When she found the spot vacant, she retracted her head from where it was stashed in her locker and went to close the door. But as soon as that door began to swing shut, she was faced with yet another surprise.

Two faces suddenly appeared in front of her, both of them with freakishly huge grins on their faces, making her jump back and let out a yelp. "Son of a—Seriously? Was that necessary? And please stop smiling like that—it's really starting to creep me out. You either look like pedophiles or serial killers."

The wide smiles on Stiles and Scott's faces faltered slightly and they exchanged a look before turning back to Gwen. There was just something off about those two. They constantly looked like they were conspiring for some reason or another. Not in a way that meant they were up to anything sinister—they were way too uncoordinated for that. They just looked like they were hiding something. All the time. "You don't have to do this, you know," she sighed, looking back and forth between the two of them.

"What do you mean?" Scott inquired, furrowing his eyebrows a little.

"Please," Gwen said, rolling her eyes a bit as she fully slammed her locker door. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. I divest you of all responsibility. You don't have to keep looking in on Lydia's basket case cousin." She waved her hands around a bit like she was shooing them off. "You are hereby released from your obligation. Go forth and be free. I really don't need a guardian angel hovering over me. It's gonna ruin that mysterious/misunderstood brand I'm trying to cultivate if I'm chumming around with you guys."

"Wha-that's not what we were doing!" Scott protested.

"Sooooo…." she drawled out, shrugging a bit. "What are you doing?"

"Wha—nothing," Stiles laughed out, scratching at the back of his neck and waving his hands around a bit. "First day back at school. Classes, books, and stuff. Knowledge."

"Um, yeah," Gwen said, scrunching her face up into a confused expression. "That's the basic idea. I meant what are you doing here. At my locker. Which, as I understand it, is far, far away from either of your lockers. If you're not checking up on me then what the hell are you doing here?"

Scott sighed heavily and scratched at his forehead. "Lydia wanted us to check in on you," he finally admitted.

"Right," Gwen sighed out, bobbing her head a bit. "I got that. And why is it exactly that she can't check in on me herself?"

Again, Scott and Stiles exchanged a glance, kind of like they were confirming their stories before speaking again.

"She's got food poisoning."

"She's just really tired."

Gwen raised her eyebrows at the both of them, slightly accusatorially, and gave them a skeptical look. Their heads snapped around so that they could glower at each other, each one a bit angry at the other for invalidating their argument. After one brief death glare, they faced Gwen with expressions that were almost innocent-looking. "She's tired and has food poisoning," they said together, making Gwen wrinkle her nose even more.

"Really?" she demanded skeptically. "Because when I was on the phone with her earlier today, she didn't sound like she had food poisoning."

"Bwah, it was really sudden," Stiles blurted out, his face creasing into a wince. "Just, you know….puking and fluids everywhere. Not pretty. She's probably sleeping it off right now. It's seems like one of those 24 hour things. She'll be right back here tomorrow."

"Yeah..." Gwen just stared at them for a moment, eyes narrowed suspiciously. Then she blew out a long breath and shook her head at them. "You know you guys suck at lying, right? Like, terribly. Horribly."

Stiles let out a scoff and rolled his eyes so heavily his head rolled a little bit too. "Pshah! What are you talking about? We're great a—at lying."

Half way into the sentence Stiles seemed to realize it wasn't exactly taking him in the right direction, and that grimace returned to his face. Gwen bit down on the inside of her cheek, trying her level best not to bust out laughing. Lydia had informed her that laughing at her friends was only allowed when they were being complete idiots. Gwen had yet to fully gage the spectrum of idiocy that Stiles and Scott could display, but generally it ranged from well-intentioned to hilarious and more than once moved into the 'embarrassing' territory. "Smooth, man," she said, shooting him a bit of a snide smirk. "Really smooth."

"Ugh, shut up."

"How was Mexico?"

Both of their eyes widened, doing a bit of a deer in headlights type thing, and neither of them said a word. She jutted out her chin a bit and gave them a questioning look while the both of them gaped at her, their mouths opening and closing a bit. Gwen just snorted and rolled her eyes at them.

"Yeah," she deadpanned. "You two are a pair of international men of mystery." Then she raised her eyebrows expectantly, pointing back and forth between them. "Get it? International? Because you were in Mexico?" The look of sheer alarm on both of their faces made her pause. "Man, what the hell did you guys do down there? Run over a hobo?"

"Nothing," Scott replied quickly, fidgeting evasively. "We just, uh, we just went to a club. Did some dancing—that sort of thing."

"Did you and Kira finally get to have that makeout session?" Gwen asked, looking at Scott pointedly. He flushed slightly and shifted on his feet, which as far as Gwen was concerned was a giant flashing neon light of a 'no'. She rolled her eyes and let out a loud groan, rocking back on her heels a bit. "Seriously? If you can't seal the deal on a road trip to Mexico filled with illicit substances and reckless, youthful abandon, when the hell is it going to happen? Jesus, the sexual tension in your group is stressing me out, and I don't even have to witness it all that much. It must be hell for you guys." She pivoted a bit, staring down Stiles this time. "Okay, at least tell me that you and Malia hooked up."

"O—okay," Stiles said, holding his hands out like he was physically pushing back her inquiries. "I think that's enough of the twenty questions."

A big grin, sarcastic split across Gwen's face. "Well that sounds like a yes," she drawled out. She lifted her hand up for a high-five and waggled her eyebrows theatrically.

Stiles glared at that hand for a moment, clearly somewhat less than amused. But then again that was the objective. Gwen had learned while back that if asking people to leave you alone didn't work out, you could always annoy them until they would want to. Turns out that after a decade of people-pleasing, she was pretty good at the alienating people thing. "What?" Gwen asked, an innocent expression covering her face and waving her hand around a bit. "No high-five?"

"Oh my God." Stiles groaned and rocked back on his heels, the expression on his face clearly stating 'I am so done with this shit'. Grabbing her shoulders, Stiles spun her around and began to walk, half-guiding, half-pushing her down the hall with Scott keeping up with them. "What are you doing?" Gwen asked, frowning a bit as she was steered around.

"You're going to class," Stiles informed her. "You are going to sit down, pay attention, not get yourself into any trouble, and generally not be a pain in the ass. More specifically you're not going to be a pain in my ass. How does that sound?"

"Well honestly it sounds a little boring," Gwen mused. "Like an 'I'd rather be getting a root canal' boring."

"Great," Stiles said, patting her on the head with a heavy dose of condescension. "Congratulations. It sounds like you've fully grasped the concept of 'high school'. Enjoy the next three and half years of torture."

Gwen made a face and twisted around to glower up at him. "Really? That's what you're going with? I was thinking something more along the lines of a rousing speech—a little bit of encouragement."

"Would you look at that?!" Stiles announced, coming to an abrupt stop and positioning her in front of a doorway. "It's your homeroom. Welcome to hell."

"Loving the positive attitude, Stilinski," Gwen drawled out, her voice thick with sarcasm, and shooting him a double thumbs up. She blew out a long breath and nodded at the two of them. "I've got to say, I feel super-comforted right now. Are you guys going to walk me to my next class too? Can we hold hands and skip through the hallways?"

Gwen stared into the room and wrinkled her nose slightly. The teacher was standing at the board writing out a list labeled 'classroom rules' and rolling his eyes at the happy chatter of his students. Ugh. Great. He was one of those 'I'll stamp out your joy with difficult tests and endless homework assignments' types. Gwen let out a low whine and rocked back on her heels. "And apparently the devil wears pleated khakis," she drawled out. "You think he'd choose something with a little more flare."

A loud snort erupted from Stiles's throat. "And there is the Martin family resemblance I've been looking for."

"What are you talking about?" Gwen said smirking up at him. "The good taste or the clever sass?"

"Or the staggering degree of self-confidence that can make you want to slam your head into the nearest solid surface," Stiles muttered back.

All of the sudden the school bell rang, and the ebb and flow of the students shifted and they began to file into their classrooms. That general sound of first-day cheerfulness and excitement gradually faded away into that more typical sound of quiet despair. A couple of students shoved their way past the trio, jostling Gwen a bit as they moved. Why they were so eager to get to freaking math class she had no idea.

Well here it was. Her bright and shining new beginning.

Just then, another student rammed into her shoulder, making her stumble. Yup. That sounded about right.

A hand reached up and grabbed her shoulder, steadying her. She looked up to find Scott staring down at her reassuringly. His hand gripped her shoulder, squeezing it with a brotherly sort of affection. "Hey," he said, looking down at her earnestly. "You'll be fine."

"Oh, I know I'll be fine," Gwen said with a casual scoff. "It's them you should be worried about."

"That's the spirit?" Stiles said as he pumped a fist in the air, the sentence coming out more as a question than anything else.

"You know you guys don't have to do this, right?" she said, turning around to face them both fully. "I mean, really. I know Lydia asked you and I appreciate the sentiment and all that, but I'm a big girl. I don't need you to babysit me .And I'm sure you both have things you'd rather be doing right now, and honestly it's a bit annoying to have people standing over you like that."

The two of them looked a little skeptical which, quite frankly, she resented. Then the second bell rang. Stiles just smacked Scott in the arm and jerked his head in the the direction of his first period class before running off down the hallway. Scott on the other hand lingered for a moment. He sighed a bit, gripping the straps of his backpack. "You're going to be fine," he repeated. Only this time it sounded different. It wasn't a reassurance. It was just a plain, unembellished, unassuming statement of fact—something Gwen wasn't very used to lately. And so she did what she usually did these days. She pushed back.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, man," Gwen quipped, giving him a long wave. "But that's kinda what I've been saying the whole time."

A soft smile pulled at the corners of Scott's lips. It was a bit unnerving, actually. He was such an oddly positive force, it felt kind of like staring into the sun. But then again the rays of the sun were kind of useless if they were confronted with a black hole. Scott didn't seem the type to accept that, though. "You _are _going to be okay," Scott said insistently.

"Great," Gwen drawled out. Scott's smile widened a bit, making her even more uncomfortable. "What?!"

"Nothing," he said with a shake of his head. "Now go kick today's ass. Make a few friends."

"Ugh," Gwen groaned, wrinkling her nose in distaste. "Not likely."

Scott raised his eyebrows at her and let out a weird laugh. "Fine. Just….don't make any enemies."

"Pshah—how likely is that? In case you haven't noticed, I am very difficult to be around."

Scott didn't respond. He just shot her one last smile before jogging down the hallway in the same direction as Stiles. Gwen sighed heavily as he disappeared into the crowds of students. Honestly it was kind of weird the way Scott and Stiles were looking out for her. It wasn't like she knew either of them all that well. She had met them a few weeks ago back when she had moved in to the Martin household, and then it was like the two of them had just decided to look out for her. Though Gwen was pretty sure it wasn't on her own account. It was on Lydia's. If she was Lydia's problem, she was their problem too. Which honestly was just fine with Gwen. Really, it was. All of the benefits of friendship, none of the hassle, right? That was fan-freaking-tastic.

By the time Gwen actually walked into her classroom, most of the seats had already filled up. Luckily there were a few spots left in the back of the room. Gwen liked the back of the room—nobody looked at you when you were in the back of the room. It was pretty much ideal. What wasn't ideal was that the room was filled with those two-person desks instead of those individual ones. That meant some poor, unfortunate soul was going to be her desk mate.

Walking briskly, Gwen tried to make her way to one of those seats. Before she could, though, a jaded drawl reached her ears. "I don't recognize you. You must be Ms. Gilroy."

Gwen stopped in her tracks, a wince covering her face as she slowly turned towards the board. The teacher—who according to his stark handwriting was named Mr. Hamilton—hadn't even needed to turn away from the board to register her entrance. He used some sort of ninja-like enhanced peripheral vision. This did not bode well. "Hi," she said with an uncomfortable wave. "Nice to meet you. I'll just—" she pointed at the free desks "—I'll just go find a seat."

"No you won't," Mr. Hamilton replied, blocking her escape and making sure she stopped short a second time. "I've been informed that I'm supposed to introduce new students at the beginning of the class. I assure you, I will enjoy the experience even less than you will."

"I seriously doubt that," she muttered to herself as she was dragged back to the front of the room.

"Alright, listen up!" Mr. Hamilton called out harshly, making the idle chitchat of the classroom stop abruptly. Most of the students twisted in their seats and turned to the front of the class, looking directly at her. Great.

"This is Gwendolyn Gilroy," Mr. Hamilton continued, waving vaguely in Gwen's direction. "She's a new transfer student, so you should all me nice and welcoming and so on and so forth." Then he turned to Gwen once more. "Do you have anything you'd like to add?"

Gwen glanced between Mr. Hamilton and the rest of the class. "Nah."

Then, without further ado, she left the front of the class and made her way to the back of the room, picking out .

"Alright then," she heard Mr. Hamilton say. "An answer elegant in its brevity. Now if you will all lend me as much of your limited attention as possible, we can now. Most of you seem to have forgotten the rules of the classroom I established last semester, so let's have a refresher course, shall we?"

Mr. Hamilton began to drone on about his rules as Gwen settled herself in for the period. The list was pretty predictable, and filled with directives that no teenager would even bother trying to fulfill.

Don't be late

Don't use cell phones

Restrain your idiocy as much as possible

Don't…..

She could have kept reading, but there were about twenty items up there and, quite frankly, she didn't care. So she just sat there. Staring down at her left hand, she began doing the exercises they taught her in physical therapy—touching each of her fingers to her thumb as quickly as possible. She managed about four repetitions before the tremor started, making her whole hand shake. She involuntarily gritted her teeth in frustration, clenching her hand into a fist. Why couldn't she get to ten? Why couldn't she at least get to ten?

"Hey!"

Gwen jumped in her seat a bit at the voice that suddenly appeared by her ear. She looked up from her hand to find a boy sliding in the seat next to her. He had a strong jaw line, velvety brown skin that was so smooth it made her a little bit envious, and a smile that seemed like it was an expression he was used to making. Great. She was sitting next to one of the happy ones. There was a distinct possibility that this could get annoying pretty quickly.

The guy dropped into the chair next to hers easily and flashed her a wide smile in greeting. She just pressed her lips together in a thin line and nodded at him in response, hoping that the less than warm greeting would put a stop to any other attempts at communication. Unfortunately she was not quite successful. The guy immediately opened his mouth to say something. He wasn't just one of the happy ones, he was one of the talkers. Gwen groaned internally waiting for some sort of verbal onslaught, but before he got the chance to say anything, Mr. Hamilton's dry voice interrupted.

"Mason," the teacher drawled out. "So good of you to show up for class. Barely into the school year and you've already violated rule number one."

The guy—Mason—glanced at the list written up at the board before speaking. "Oh, yeah," he muttered. "Sorry. The bus was late."

"You know the rules," the man replied. "Three tardies and you get a detention. Consider this your strike one."

Mason sighed heavily, but nodded in silent agreement. Then Mr. Hamilton's eyes shifted slightly, and Gwen found herself as the object of his attention. And the way he was looking at her you would of thought she was a slug or something else equally disgusting. "Ms. Gilroy, please remove those headphones. It may be a difficult concept to grasp, but classes such as this one are a time for you to learn. Generally this involves actually listening to the individual teaching you."

Gwen ground her teeth together, desperately trying to keep the rude comment she was thinking in her head rather than on her lips. She managed to force it back and silently reached up, removing the headphones and stowing them in her bag. After inclining his head towards her in the most patronizing way possible, he grabbed a stack of papers off his desk and began passing them around to the class. "Alright, here's your syllabus. It has an outline of everything we'll be doing this semester. Cue the chorus of immature groaning—"

"That was a good call," the boy next to her said suddenly, wrenching her attention away from the Mr. Hamilton as he droned on about the syllabus.

Frowning to herself, Gwen glanced to her right. He was leaning in towards her conspiratorially and speaking out of the corner of his mouth in an attempt to be subtle. "What are you talking about?" she demanded.

"You had the look," he whispered back, gesturing vaguely in the direction of his eyes. "You never want to talk back to Hamilton. Once you do, he'll have it out for you all year. He takes the 'abuse of power' thing about as far as it can go for a high school teacher." Then he smiled at her and stuck out his hand. "Hi. I'm Mason."

Gwen eyed his hand warily for a few moments, but took it, giving it a hesitant shake. "Gwen."

"I'm pretty sure I met everybody in our class already and you don't look at all familiar," he continued. "Are you new here?"

"Yup," Gwen replied. Usually in circumstances like this she tried to keep it at one word answers, making people uncomfortable enough to discourage attempts at conversation. It didn't seem to be working out all that well this time, though. And it wasn't going to. She recognized this guy—his type. Mostly because she used to be his type—the friendly one who was just really good at making other people happy. And who wanted to make other people happy. Well, unfortunately for him all of his efforts on her would be a complete waste. She wasn't all that good at being happy these days.

"Fresh meat," Mason continued, still smiling and bobbing his head a bit. "That's good to hear. Well you're gonna like it here. I mean I'm pretty sure math sucks as much here as it does anywhere else and the teachers can be assholes, but we've got some things working for us. We've got an awesome lacrosse team, pretty good band, plus the tater tots they serve in the cafeteria are pretty freaking incredible."

"Sounds great," Gwen deadpanned.

Mason blinked, but otherwise didn't show all that much of a reaction to her bluntness. "Yeah….." he drawled out. "It is. Um….if you need any help getting settled—directions, that sort of thing. What school did you transfer from?"

"Look, you really don't have to do this," Gwen interjected.

A crease formed between Mason's eyebrows as they drew together. "What d'you mean?"

"The whole 'welcome wagon' thing," Gwen said, waving her hand around a bit. "You know, the tour, the advice, that sort of stuff. I appreciate the sentiment and everything, you really don't need to waste your time on me. I'm cool without it. And you don't want me to fill a spot in your friendship quota—trust me."

That seemed to shut Mason up pretty quickly. Not because it had been spoken especially harshly—Gwen's voice was more tired than anything else—but her casual bluntness seemed to have that effect on people from time to time. It was just as well, anyway. Mr. Hamilton had finished blathering on about the syllabus, and it looked like he had actually planned something for them. Ugh. Gwen hated that type of teacher—the ones who actually expected to accomplish something on the first day of school.

"So I'm sure by now you are all wondering what kind of horrors I have in store for you," Mr. Hamilton announced, clapping his hands together in something that Gwen supposed slightly resembled glee. "Well I for one would like to know exactly how much work I have cut out for me this semester, so we're going to find out what you remember from the last one. That is if you remember anything at all. And do you know what that means?" Both the collective groan of the students and the vindictive smile of the teacher told Gwen she probably wasn't going to like the answer. "That's right boys and girls," Mr. Hamilton continued. "You're taking a test. I haven't decided whether or not it's going to be graded yet."

Angry mutterings and the sound of rustling paper filled the room as the students stowed their things. Gwen sighed heavily and followed their example, removing everything but her mechanical pencil from her desk. She tapped the eraser against the table impatiently, waiting for the depressing stack of papers to make its way in her direction. She propped her head up on her hand and yawned a bit. As she did she got a glance at Mason, who was staring at her with a curious expression. "Where's your calculator?" he asked, looking at the vacant spot in front of her.

Gwen just shrugged back. "Don't have one."

"Wha—"

But before he had the chance to finish his question, the papers made their way to her desk. Gwen skimmed the page in front of her. Linear algebra, factorials, it was mostly the easy stuff. Her pencil scratched quickly across her paper. The numbers revealed themselves fairly quickly. They usually did. Gwen wasn't sure how to describe it. It was like they….unfolded themselves. Math was just rules, really. As long as you knew what the rules were, you were fine. You knew where you stood with math. It was the same with a piano. You could hit a key and trust that it the note would come out clear and true. It was neat, tidy, and kind of beautiful. People on the other hand—they were messy.

Before she knew it, Gwen flipped the page to find herself confronted not by more paper, but by the cheap fake wood laminate desk. She scanned the pages again, giving it a quick look for mistakes. Once she got to that last page again, she pushed back her seat, strode to the front of the classroom, and dropped the paper on the teacher's desk. She got some strange looks from her classmates on the way back. As she collapsed back in her seat, she reached into her bag to pull out her headphones. Shoving them over her ears she leaned down over the desk, resting her head on her arms and closing her eyes. Then she allowed herself to drift.

She didn't get to drift very far, though. Just a few moments after she laid her head down, she felt someone tap her on the shoulder. Raising her head again, she found someone looming over her. That someone being Mr. Hamilton. Honestly with the expression on his face, she couldn't tell if he was pissed off or happy to be standing her over her like that. His lips started moving, but Gwen couldn't hear him over the sound of the music pumping in her ears. She pulled off the headphones again, looking up at him. "Sorry, what was that?"

Hamilton stared down at her, his eyes filled with a lethal mixture of judgment and contempt. He threw her test down on the table with a loud thwack. "Ms. Gilroy," he growled. "I understand that you're new here, but I don't appreciate intentional mediocrity. I expect my students to actually try to accomplish the tasks I set out for them."

Gwen looked down at the test and then back up at him again. "Um, yeah," she replied, nodding down at the paper. "I did. It's right there. I finished it. Consider it accomplished."

Hamilton let out a scoff and raised his eyebrows at her. "You finished it?" he demanded skeptically.

"Yes….." Gwen said, scrunching up her face in confusion.

Narrowing his eyes at her and letting out a disbelieving scoff, Hamilton snatched the paper back up and began to read it. His eyes darted back and forth across the page, and as they did, his face changed. It went from snide to confused then to slightly angry. When he drew the papers away from his face, he smiled down at her—actually it was more of a sneer than a smile—and returned to his desk.

A loud snort echoed from right next to her. She turned to see Mason shaking his head at his own test, trying to keep a weird, contorted smile off his face. He was pretty much the only one smiling though. She looked up to find her other classmates staring at her with weird, unreadable expressions.

Great. She had alienated her classmates, pissed off a teacher, generally made herself extremely visible, and it was only twenty-three minutes into first period. All in a good days work.

**So there it is! I love Mason, and he and Gwen are going to be close friends, but at this point Gwen isn't looking to make friends. She's going to end up with them anyway though!**

**Sorry for there still not being much Liam, but I can guarantee that he will appear in the next chapter in a significant way.**

**Also, Stiles and Scott! So I tried to play it with them being a bit patronizing (Stiles especially since he's a bit of a smartass). They're trying to look out for Gwen, but they still don't know her all that well. They are going to grow to appreciate her a lot. As for right now I'm going for an older brother-younger sister type thing. Scott is the over-protective big brother and Stiles is the big brother who puts Vaseline in your conditioner to mess up your hair.**

**Hope you liked it, and please review!**


	4. Strangers

**Disclaimer: 'Teen Wolf' isn't mine. Shocking, right? But it's true. If there are any similarities in content or dialogue, it has probably originated with the show.**

**A huge thank you to she.s. .one, Cassie-Di, crimson sun06, Bookiee, ForgeandGred4Ever, fighter61998, Lil Miss Sunshine14, artificial-paradises, Guest, Paige, and Ivy J Knight for reviewing! You guys are the best.**

Chapter 4 - Strangers

"So how did it go yesterday?"

And there it was. The question Gwen had been waiting for—the one she was dreading. It sort of hung around her, like a bad smell. A well-intentioned bad smell if that made any sense. Like one of those perfumes that in theory should smell good but ends up being way too pungent. It fills your lungs and makes you choke a little bit. Suffocating you with sweetness. Strangling you with solicitation. That kind of smell. Gwen wished she could just wave her hand and fan those words away, making them disappear like molecules dispersing in the air. Unfortunately that wasn't quite how things worked. Especially with someone as persistent as Lydia.

Actually, Gwen was surprised that it had taken this long to get to the topic. She had expected to arrive back home from school and get an interrogation while she was still on the freaking stoop. Right before she managed to grab hold of the handle, the door would violently swing open to reveal Lydia, her eyebrows raised expectantly. First she would look over Gwen's shoulder to make sure her car was intact. Then her eyes would travel back to Gwen and she would ask that dreaded question. "How did it go?"

But Lydia hadn't opened the door. There was no slightly judgmental but overall well-meaning 'harrumph'. The house was just plain empty. Gwen wasn't sure if that made her feel relieved or just….sad. As much as she tried to avoid people these days, being alone in a big house—footsteps echoing against the walls—made it feel too much like she was back in her parents house. And when she was in that Pottery Barn catalogue of a house, she would call Liv. Liv wasn't exactly picking up anymore. All she got was that prank phone message where Liv pretended to pick up the phone, followed by a 'gotcha, sucker!' and an agonizing beep. So she did what she usually did. She closed herself in her room, put her headphones on and crank up the music until she couldn't hear the silence anymore.

Lydia didn't get home until late that night. Really late. All the light had long been turned off, the streets quiet and all reasonable people fast asleep. If it wasn't for her freaking insomnia she would have been one of them. The clock was blinking 12:44 when she heard the car door slam shut. It read 12:52 when the light in the bathroom down the hall switched on, the faint light leaking through the crack under Gwen's door. She could have wrenched the door open and stood in the hallway with that patented judge-y look all the women in their family seemed to share and ask what the hell she had been doing that kept her out so late, but she didn't. For some stupid reason she thought that if she didn't bother Lydia about her late-night mystery excursions (and Mexico), then Lydia would let her be as well. Live and let live—that kind of thing.

Well that was a freaking stupid thought. An idiotic thought. Lydia was never the type to 'let things go'. Gwen should have known that because neither was she. Another shared family trait—they were really bad at letting things go. Once they were invested in something, there was very little that could deter them. And now she was locked in a car with the girl. They were encased in a freaking hermetically sealed box, hurtling in the direction of school. No escape. So Gwen took the only escape route she could think of. When Lydia asked 'how did it go?', she pretended she was asleep.

You can imagine how well that went.

All of the sudden a Gwen felt a gentle but forceful thwack over the head, jolting her out of her feigned unconsciousness. "Hey!" Gwen hissed, jumping in her seat a bit. "What was that for?"

"For ignoring me," Lydia chirped back.

Gwen rubbed the side of her head theatrically, pretending that it actually hurt. "I wasn't ignoring you," she protested. "I was sleeping."

Lydia didn't even bother saying anything in response to that one. She just raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips slightly in a highly skeptical expression. Gwen let out a groan

and collapsed back in her seat, staring absently out the window at all the trees flying past. Lydia scoffed at the maintained silence and lightly whacked her again. "So are you going to answer my question or not?" she demanded. "How did it go?"

"It went fine," Gwen sighed. "Teachers taught, students studied, everybody performed their agreed-upon roles. It was spectacularly normal. And by normal I obviously mean boring."

"Seriously?" Lydia demanded. "That's it? That's all you've got to say?"

"Was I supposed to be more enthusiastic?" Gwen sat up straighter and pasted a huge, fake grin on her face. "It was super-duper awesome," she chirped, lifting her hands in the air and waving them in some sad attempt at jazz-hands. "Learning! Whee!"

"Whee?" Lydia demanded, scrunching up her face into an expression of distaste. "Are you kidding me?"

"Just trying to give it a little color."

"Oh my God!" Lydia whined. "Can I just get a straight answer out of you?"

"It was _fine_, Lydia," Gwen insisted. "School was school. Paper, pens, bad cafeteria food, that feeling of resentment wafting off all the teachers who have definitely started to hate their students. Same as always. There's nothing all that exciting about Beacon Hills High School."

An almost amused snort forced itself out of Lydia's nose, making Gwen furrow her brow slightly. It sounded like a 'you have no idea' type of snort. But before she could comment, Lydia quickly brushed past it, going on the offensive with even more questions. "And did you make any new friends?" Lydia drawled out, clearly becoming frustrated with Gwen's evasiveness.

Gwen stared down at her hands and pulled idly at the hem of the giant smiley-face T-shirt she was wearing—the grin on it so wide it almost became menacing. She began touching all the fingers of her left hand to the thumb again, seeing how far she could get before the tremors started. She got to seven.

"It's a little early to tell, don't you think?" she muttered quietly.

"Did you_ try_ to make friends?" When Gwen remained quiet Lydia rolled her eyes in frustration. "Okay, who did you eat lunch with?" she barreled on, trying to find something to build off of.

"Amy Elliott and Nick Dunne," Gwen mumbled.

Immediately Lydia narrowed her eyes and gritted her teeth. "Amy Elliott and Nick Dunne," Lydia repeated, the frustration in her voice becoming more and more pronounced.

"Mm-hm."

Lydia let out a disappointed sigh and shook her head a little bit. When she shifted in her seat to look at Gwen, the expression on her face was simultaneously accusatory and disappointed. "Amy Elliott and Nick Dunne are the main characters in 'Gone Girl'. You read a book during lunch?"

"Yeah," Gwen said with a defensive shrug. "So what?"

"So books are not a substitute for human interaction!" Lydia exclaimed, tapping a finger forcefully against the steering wheel.

"You're right," Gwen agreed, bobbing her head a bit. "They're infinitely superior to human interaction. "

"Really? How do you figure that?"

"You can pick them up and put them down," Gwen replied easily. "They'll always be there. They're dependable. You can take them at face value. You don't have to worry about books turning into gigantic assholes or bailing on you. You don't have to worry about them d—"

Immediately Gwen's mouth snapped shut. She had almost gone and said it. The 'd' word. And in such a freaking casual way too. It was a word she tried not to say very often. It just seemed so…permanent. It wasn't like Gwen was expecting anything to change, she just didn't like the idea of having the word out there. And she really didn't like the idea of her being the one who put it out there. Gwen's jaw twitched violently, but she kept her teeth clenched together as she went back to staring out the window.

When did it start getting any easier? It had been over four months—four solid months—and it was still there, all the time. That hollow pain in her chest. You think it would have dulled some by now, right? But it didn't. Because every morning when she woke up there were still those moments of bleary-eyed confusion, and then she would have to remember all over again that Liv was dead. The knife was jabbed in her gut all over again. Each time the sun rose it brought a fresh new hell. How the hell are you supposed to get over something when you have wake up realizing your best friend is dead every freaking day?

It didn't matter that the music was quietly blaring out the stereo. The next few moments felt completely silent. Every breath, every heavy swallow, every noise felt like it echoed against the walls of the car. It took a while for either of them to speak again. "Gwen," Lydia said, her voice suddenly a lot softer. "You don't have to feel guilty."

"Why would I feel guilty?" Gwen shot back, the sentence coming out brusque, harsh, and way too quick to be genuine.

Lydia glanced ay Gwen out of the corner of her eye, shooting her a knowing expression. "Letting things get back to normal—letting yourself feel normal…it doesn't mean you're forgetting her."

"There's no way I'm going back to what I was before," Gwen muttered. "That girl was a naïve idiot."

"You don't have to go back to…whatever you were before," Lydia replied quietly. "It's just…moving on—going on with your life—it doesn't mean that you're leaving her behind. But keeping yourself unhappy forever…..Allison wouldn't have wanted that for me. Liv wouldn't want it for you."

Lydia might have said more, but they were already pulling up in the school parking lot. The tension remained thick in the car as they circled the lot, looking for a place to park. This is why Gwen avoided other people. It wasn't just because 99.9% of them were unbearable to be around. It was because she didn't know how to act around them anymore, including Lydia. But Lydia was willing to hang around long enough for her to figure it out. Other people….in her experience other people weren't quite so patient. And if they weren't….well then they wouldn't be worth her time in the first place, were they?

After pulling into a parking spot right out by the lacrosse field, Lydia sighed heavily and ran a hand through her red hair before turning to face Gwen fully. "You said you wanted a fresh start, right? If you want a fresh start, you actually have to start. You have to _try_." She reached up and smoothed back some of the unruly, flyaway hairs that had managed to escape from Gwen's messy braid. Pressing her lips together in a thin smile, she looked at Gwen with a sort of tender sympathy. "Look, I'm going to give you a piece of advice that is incredibly generic and cliché, but usually ends up being pretty accurate. Just go out there and be yourself."

"You mean bitchy, defensive, and being a general pain in the ass?" Gwen asked, a slightly humorous smirk pulling at the corners of her lips.

Lydia narrowed her eyes at Gwen, but her lips turned upwards as well. "Get out of this car and be the charming little Gwen I know you can be."

"Charming?" Gwen demanded, raising her eyebrows skeptically. "Do we think that's likely?"

"I'll settle for 'not scary'," Lydia replied, widening her eyes innocently.

Gwen let out a light chuckle and rolled her eyes a bit before reaching to unbuckle her seat belt. "It's a lot to ask, but I'll do my best."

With that, Gwen slid out of the car and slammed the door behind her before marching towards the front door of the school. Before she reached it, though, she spared one last glance over her shoulder. Lydia was still sitting in the driver's seat of the car, absently staring out of the window in front of her. Gwen paused a moment to watch her. The girl just sat there for a moment, her face almost vacant but with a hint of sadness behind the eyes. Then, all of the sudden, she gave a slight start, seeming to snap herself out of whatever reverie she had lapsed into. She flipped the visor down, checking herself in the mirror quickly before flipping it shut again and making a move to get out of the car.

It was in both of them—the hollow ache. Gwen could still see it in her cousin's eyes. There was that same missing piece from both of them. But somehow Lydia managed to soldier through it. While Gwen had completely retreated into herself and turned into a hostile, antisocial weirdo, Lydia had kept herself together more or less. Maybe it was that she had something in her that Gwen just didn't. Maybe it was that she was stronger. Maybe if Gwen tried harder, she could be more like her cousin. She could try filling that hole in her chest instead of just ignoring it and hoping it would go away. But she wasn't ready to try—not yet anyway. Trying just led to disappointment. Wasted effort and wasted time. And if Lydia asked her who she ate lunch with that day, her answer would probably be Edmund Dantes.

Or at least that was the plan.

Over the past few months, Gwen had developed a strategy for dealing with school. It entailed the minimization of interpersonal communication. She lingered at her locker, she sat in the back of classrooms, she sat at the lunch tables on the periphery of the cafeteria, headphones on and book in hand. A couple of isolating mechanisms, a few ways to waste time, it all added up. The formula was easy, and it worked well. Especially back in Devenford Prep where nobody was eager to talk to her in the first place. So she stuck to it.

As soon as the lunch bell rang, releasing her from the confines of one of the duller history classes she had been forced to attend, she pushed her way through the lunch line, collected the hockey puck of 'ground beef' that was probably supposed to be a hamburger, and dropped her tray at one of the tables near the window. Pulling out her iPhone, she bumped up the volume until she couldn't hear the sound of people chatting around her and pulled out her heavily worn copy of 'The Count of Monte Cristo'. But she only managed to get a few pages in and swallow down a few nibbles of her burger before a second tray slammed down right next to her.

Jumping in surprise, Gwen slammed her book shut and yanked off her headphones. "What the hell?" she practically shouted, her head snapping around so she glower at whoever it was that had intruded on her personal bubble. But her angry glares were met with a beatific smile.

"Hey!"

Sitting right opposite her was Mason…..well she didn't actually know his last name. The guy from math class. The grinning 'welcome wagon' guy. The guy whose cheerful overtures she had unceremoniously refused the other day. From previous experience yesterday's brusque and semi-hostile dismissal should have been enough to drive him off, but here he was, sitting in front of her looking as cheerful and friendly as ever. Gwen narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. "What are you doing?"

"I'm eating lunch," he said lightly. He scooped up a forkful of the grayish glop on the plate and let it splatter back down on the tray, wrinkling his nose slightly. "If we can call it lunch," he continued. "I mean does this actually look like food to you? Do you think the administration is trying to poison us? I think that might be a distinct possibility." He looked at her expectantly, like he expected her to say something in response. When she didn't, his eyebrows drew together in a quizzical, curious frown. "You're not much of a 'talker' are you?"

"Not so much, no," Gwen replied a bit snappishly. "I kind of clashes with the whole 'loner' vibe I've been putting out there. You know, 'loner' as in alone. As in by yourself. As in solitary."

But Mason just nodded his head along with her words, remaining intentionally oblivious. "Yeah, I can see how that might be an issue," he said, taking another bite of whatever the hell that it was on their plates.

Gwen scrunched up her face in confusion, cocking her head to the side as she surveyed him. "Okay, seriously, dude," she scoffed, shaking her head at him. "Why the hell are you here? I know it's not because you're hitting on me. I'm definitely not your type."

"Really?" Mason demanded, giving her a funny look. "How do you figure that? You're kinda hot in a 'don't look at me too long or I might shiv you' kind of way."

Gwen exhaled sharply in a way that almost resembled a laugh. That was new. It had been a while before someone other than Lydia or her aunt Natalie had made her want to laugh. Ugh. Welcome wagon guy wasn't just nice. He was nice and funny—charming even. And not that sleazy type of charming made you want to punch them in the face, but the genuine type of charming. Gwen kind of hated him for making it so impossible to hate him.

"That might be true," Gwen said, bobbing her head along with her words. "But I still don't think it'd work out. Like on a chromosomal level, I don't think it's a right fit."

Mason made a face at her. "I don't think I'm following you."

"You're a teenage boy I've spoken to twice, who has sat next to me through some excruciatingly boring math classes, and who has yet to even attempt to check out my boobs," she drawled out, waving her hands in the general area of her chest. "Either you're gay or super-repressed. You are way too self-aware to be super-repressed."

Mason let out a light snort and raised his eyebrows at her, but his eyes still didn't travel any lower than her own. "Maybe I'm just polite," he suggested.

It was Gwen's turn to snort, only hers was a bit more harsh. "Did you miss the 'horny teenage boy' part of that sentence?" she shot back with a sly smirk.

"You didn't say horny before," Mason pointed out.

"Yeah, that's because it goes without saying. It's a general state of being."

Mason let out a bark of laughter. "That's a fair point. You…..you are very observant."

Gwen jerked her head to the side noncommittally. "I do my best. Now are you actually going to tell me why you're here?"

When he didn't respond immediately, Gwen pressed her lips together in a thin line. She began to drum her fingers against the table in a way that was more than slightly passive-aggressive. The sound filled the air between them, an impatient challenge for Mason to actually answer the question put to him. Again, where most people would have gotten pissed and left, Mason just smiled. Again. Seriously, all the guy seemed to do was smile. How was it possible for someone to be that laid-back? Or that happy? Blowing out a long breath, he leaned his elbows on the edge of the table and rested his head on his hands. The two of them had a bit of a staring contest before he spoke again.

"Okay, so I have no idea what a—a 'friendship quota' is," he said using air quotes. "But I've got to say, if I met a sarcastic, moody math genius who can piss off my least favorite teacher by doing exactly what he asks her to do? That girl sounds pretty interesting. If the whole 'friendship quota' is actually a thing, I'd save a spot for someone like that."

Gwen, who was in the middle of chewing the alleged hamburger, coughed loudly, spewing little bits of 'beef' across the table. "You're kidding, right? I've been being a complete bitch to avoid this exact situation. Why would you sign up for that?"

Mason just shrugged. "I have experience dealing with difficult people."

"Do you have experience dealing with people who don't want to be dealt with in the first place?" she deadpanned.

"Do you not remember the part where I said we were friends now?" Mason said, cocking his head to the side and looking at her curiously. "I think I was pretty clear. Plus I literally said it like two seconds ago."

"I don't remember agreeing to it."

"That's okay. You'll catch up."

Gwen opened and closed her mouth a few times, silently stammering in protest, but Mason ignored her. He lifted a single hand, waving a bit, and all the sudden Gwen didn't just have one unwelcome visitor sitting at her table. She had three. All it took was one wave and two more members were summoned from the teeming masses, making a beeline for their—_her_ table. It was her table. She maintained dominion over that table. So why the hell did people keep thinking that it was okay to sit down and talk to her? Apparently it was a hell of a lot easier to be antisocial in a school where like 80% of the people inexplicably hated her.

"Why are there people walking this direction?" she demanded, looking at Mason accusatorially. "Why are there people smiling and waving and headed this way?"

"They're my friends," Mason replied easily. "Calm down. You look like you're about to have an aneurysm."

"Jesus," she whispered, rolling her eyes a bit as the newcomers approached. "What the hell is this—an ice cream social?"

The pair walking to join them—a boy and a girl about her age—both of them pretty hot. Like an improbable degree of hotness. The guy had a jaw so chiseled it could probably cut glass, a boyish smile, and streaked blonde hair. Basically he looked like a life-size Ken doll. Hell, he even had dimples. Gwen didn't trust dimples. And then there was the girl. She was tall and willowy, with light brown skin and long, flowing hair. She almost looked fragile, but there was some vague hostility lurking behind those innocent-looking doe eyes. Gwen wrinkled her nose at them suspiciously. She had become a lot more observant since she realized that people are liars. She had gotten pretty good at spotting the liars too.

"Hey, Mason," the guy said as the two of them slid into the two seats next to Mason, placing their trays on the table almost in unison.. All the sudden there were three of them all in a row, staring her down. It felt kind of like sitting in front of a firing squad, except everyone seemed to be smiling. "So," Blondie drawled out, swagger seeping out of most of his pores. "Who's the newb?"

"Who the hell are you calling a 'newb'?" Gwen shot back, somewhat snappishly.

"Guys, this is Gwen," Mason answered cheerful, waving vaguely in Gwen's direction. "Gwen, meet Garrett and Violet."

"It's nice to meet you," Violet said. Her voice was sweet, but her eyes still had that kind of edge to them, giving Gwen the distinct feeling that she was being measured up—evaluated. Like she was a threat or something. Or maybe that was her new inherent suspicion of other people talking. She took another bite of her hamburger, a small crease forming between her eyebrows as she surveyed them.

"Sure."

After her monosyllabic answer, a short silence hung around the table. Which Gwen was fine with. She had a knack for making other people uncomfortable, and watching them squirm a bit as they tried to deal with her had kind of become a new pastime for her. Better than reality TV. Mason just rolled his eyes heavily and gave her this peeved look.

It was Blondie who spoke first. "So. What are we doing this weekend?"

Immediately, the other two members of the trio groaned heavily. They were smiling a bit too, though. Like it was some sort of inside joke.

"Seriously?" Violet said, her lips quirking up a bit at the corners. "It's only Tuesday. How are you thinking about this already?"

"That's what weekends are for, isn't it?" Garrett replied easily. "It's to give us something to look forward to so we don't go absolutely bat crap crazy during the week. And I, for one, would to be looking forward to something awesome. If I have to spend another weekend watching Netflix in my pajamas, I might have to kill myself. Seriously." He shifted his gaze to Gwen, smiling a bit. The light glinted off of his impossibly white teeth in a way that kind of menacing. "What about you, new girl?" he said, nodding in her direction. "You know about anything entertaining going on in this wasteland of fun."

"I was gonna hold a séance and try to raise my satanic overlord from the fiery pit of hell," she deadpanned.

At that Mason started laughing a loud cough, choking a bit on his food. "Sh—she's kidding," he laughed out uncomfortably before glancing at Gwen out of corner of his eye. "You are kidding, right?"

Gwen just took a sip out of her water bottle and shrugged. "It's a full moon this weekend," she drawled out. "If there ever was a time to do it….."

Then she heard another laugh, only this one wasn't uncomfortable. It was genuinely amused. Gwen turned towards the source of the noise to find Violet smiling again. This time it reached her eyes—the first genuine smile she had seen from the girl. She nodded at Gwen appreciatively. "You're a little crazy, aren't you?"

Again, Gwen just shrugged, making Violet smile even wider. "You've got a little edge to you," she said, nodding slowly before facing Mason. "I like her. Good find, Mason."

"Good find?" Gwen drawled out, raising her eyebrows. "What am I, a lost puppy you've decided to adopt?"

They seemed to ignore that quip. "Sooooooo," Garrett said, leaning in over the table. "You're new here?"

Gwen's face pinched in a bit. This conversation was quickly being steered towards her least favorite type of conversation. The 'get to know you' conversation. It pretty much consisted of other people asking you questions and looking at you expectantly until you answered them. For someone who hated questions, it was pretty much a complete nightmare. She leaned backwards in her chair, putting as much distance between her and the three others as possible and folding her arms across her chest defensively. She knew the strategy for this kind of thing. Use evasive responses, use as few syllables as possible, and, if possible, answer a question with a question. "So what if I'm new here?" she shot back.

"We just moved here a couple of months ago," Violet said, draping her arm over Garrett's shoulder in a way that seemed more than a little intimate—almost possessive. "It's always nice to have meat a little fresher than you."

"Okay," Gwen muttered, slightly put off by the vaguely morbid wording. "Glad to help."

Garrett reached up grabbing hold of Violet's hand as he looked at her in a way that seemed to be both casual and calculating. "So Gwen," Garrett continued. "What's your deal?"

"My deal?"

"Likes, dislikes, interests, hobbies…." he drawled out, bobbing his head a bit. "What are all those fascinating little details that add up to make you you?"

"Not all that much to say," Gwen replied easily. "I am exceptionally boring."

A slightly smug smirk quirked at the corners of Garrett's lips, making Gwen's face contort into a slightly perturbed expression. "I get it," he said. "Trying to stay all mysterious. We all like our secrets."

"You'll have to forgive my friends," Mason interjected, smacking Garrett in the shoulder. "They have limited social skills." He turned to Gwen with an apologetic look. "How about we start with some questions that aren't phrased in an exceptionally creepy way. What brings you to Beacon Hills?"

Gwen frowned, tapping her plastic spork against the edge of her plate. She could continue to avoid all the questions. She could do so very easily. But that was the thing about being overly withholding. If you tried to be too secretive, it would just make people even more curious. Share a limited amount, choose the details you can share and you can control the situation. "My parents are abroad so I moved in with my aunt and cousin," she replied. "New home, new school, new lease on life. Blah, blah, blah."

"Where did you transfer from?"

"The portal to hell that is Devenford Prep."

Something in that sentence made Mason blink in surprise, a weird, befuddled expression covering his face. Like he had just had some grand sweeping realization. Then a massive shit-eating grin covered his face. He let out a laugh and shook his head at her. "You went to Devenford Prep?" he demanded in a weirdly giddy tone. "Your name is Gwen and you went to Devenford Prep?"

"Yeah…" Gwen said, the frown on her face deepening slightly. "Devenford Prep—your big lacrosse rival. Don't worry, I hate them more that you do at this point."

"No," Mason said, shaking his head and looking weirdly pleased with the situation. "I just—I think you might know a friend of mine. He actually transferred here from Devenford too."

Gwen felt herself go cold. She was pretty sure she even paled slightly. Great. Perfect. No matter how much she tried to avoid her past, it continually came back to bite her in the ass. At every possible turn. Recognition slapped her across the face, leaving behind a nasty sting. It had been a long time, but this wasn't the first time she had ever seen Mason. The Mason sitting across from her—the one person she had met recently that she could see herself actually liking—was Liam's Mason. Liam's best friend. Of course. Gwen sighed and lifted her hands to her face, pushing her messy hair out of her face. "Liam Dunbar?" she muttered quietly.

"Yeah!" Mason let out a laugh—one of those 'this is quite the coincidence' laughs—and squinted at her like he was trying to remember something. "You know, I think I remember seeing you before, actually. Birthday party a couple of years ago? Only you looked pretty different then. I'm pretty sure you were carrying a Tupperware filled with cupcakes. Made from scratch."

"Yeah, well things change," Gwen sighed in frustration. "I'm a big fan of Betty Crocker mixes now."

"Liam is going to flip when he finds out you're here," Mason said cheerfully. He looked down at his watch impatiently. "Man what is taking him so long? He was supposed to meet me here like fifteen minutes ago." And then, with almost comically perfect timing, Mason looked up over her shoulder, waving at some figure behind her. "Hey! Over here!"

Gwen's eyes fell shut, just waiting for confirmation of what she already suspected was about to happen. The sound of feet pounding against the checkered laminate tiles echoed above the general din of the cafeteria. And then she heard it. The voice that she had been trying so very hard to avoid.

"Hey guys," Liam said from somewhere behind her. "Sorry I'm late. Mr. Adams held me up a bit after history to give me another freaking lecture. Apparently we're supposed to stay awake during class. Snoring is frowned upon."

Gwen kept her back turned to him, staring straight ahead, focusing on the gray bricks of the wall opposite her. She gritted her teeth and prayed that she could just dematerialize and float away on that annoying draft that was hitting the back of her neck. All of the sudden, the plastic orange chair next to her was wrenched out and a figure collapsed into it, slamming a tray down in the process. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Liam's head slowly turning in her direction. Gwen sucked in a deep breath, steeling herself for the reaction.

As soon as he actually caught sight of her, the smile dropped off Liam's face and it froze in an expression of shock. Eyes wide open, mouth open….he kind of looked like a scared baby. "G—Gwen?" he said, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion.

Gwen pressed her lips together in a tight, grim smile. "Hey," she replied dully.

Much like the last time they spoke—'spoke' being a generous term, they had only exchanged a single word—Liam seemed to be kind of at a loss. And this time wasn't shaping up to be any different. She didn't understand why he was so surprised. He knew she went to this school. But here he was, gaping at her again like she was some freak carnival side-show. Gwen bit the inside of her cheek, actively trying to distract herself from the level of awkward that seemed to be hovering around the two of them, but it turns out that was kind of impossible. When someone is looking at you all bug-eyed, awkwardness is kind of inevitable. There was a weird pause of about five seconds where nobody said or did anything. And in those five seconds, Gwen made up her mind. She wanted to be anywhere but there.

"Yeah—I'm gonna go," she said, snatching up her things and shoving them in her backpack as quickly as possible.

All of the sudden Liam seemed to snap out of whatever panicky trance he went into, shaking his head like he was trying to reorient his thoughts. "Gwen, wait—"

But she was already on her feet, ready to leave. "See you guys around," she said, directing a long wave at the three people sitting opposite her. "It wasn't terrible meeting you."

With that brief goodbye she spun on her heel and began marching in the opposite direction. Her stomach was still grumbling with the tiniest bit of hunger, but she ignored it. There was no way she was walking back into….whatever the hell that was. Nope. She would satisfy herself with the vending machines near the lacrosse field. Doritos and Butterfingers constituted a well-balanced meal, right? She shoved her way through the double doors of the cafeteria and began marching down the hallway, headed in no particular direction. She didn't manage to get that far, though. After making it about seven long strides down the hall, she heard the loud bang of the doors being thrown open a second time.

"Gwen!" Liam's voice called after her. "Hey, Gwen!"

But Gwen didn't respond. She sucked in a deep breath and picked up her speed to the point where she was in that weird pace somewhere between walking and running. Apparently it still wasn't enough. She felt kind of like one of the characters in a horror movie where no matter how fast they run, the serial killer stalking them can walk calmly an still catch up easily. It only took a few moments for her to feel the hand on her shoulder, trying to get her to stop.

"Gw—"

"What?!" The sound of Gwen's voice echoed against the cold metal of the lockers. She stopped short and spun around, throwing his hand off her shoulder in the process. Liam blinked in surprise at her sudden shout and took a few steps back. Gwen threw her hands in the air and let them collapse back to her sides. "Seriously, Liam. What? What do you want?"

He held his hands up in the air like she had suddenly pulled a gun on him or something. He was trying to placate her—to calm her down. "I just want to talk," he said gently.

A loud, passive-aggressive laugh burbled out of her throat, almost of its own accord. "Liam, we haven't spoken in like three months. What could we possibly have to talk about now? I'm serious, if you've got anything to say, then go ahead and say it."

She looked at him, eyebrows raised expectantly, and waited for him to speak. He opened and closed his mouth a few times like he was trying to find the words, but no sound came out. He remained completely silent, scratching awkwardly at the back of his neck. Gwen let out a snort and shook her head at him. "Well," she enunciated carefully. "That was absolutely fascinating. Now if you excuse me, I'm going to go make a map of all this school's vending machines. Have a nice life."

She spun around and set down the hallway again, but before she had the chance to take a single step Liam somehow managed to dodge in front of her, the soles of his sneakers squeaking loudly against the tile. Squeezing her eyes shut, Gwen let out a groan of frustration. "Liam, what are you doing here?" she sighed out, exhaustion entering her tone.

Suddenly Liam became fidgety, shifting on his feet. "I transferred," he mumbled. "Same as you."

"No," Gwen said, shaking her head. "No, I don't mean what are you doing at Beacon Hills High. I don't care why you transferred. I mean why are you here, talking to me."

Liam exhaled sharply, his shoulders sagging forwards a bit like he was deflating. He looked up at her with a slightly dejected, puppy dog expression that almost made her want to soften up a little bit. Almost. "Come on, Gwen," he said, shrugging sadly. "We were friends."

"Yeah," she said, nodding in agreement. "We were friends. Were. Note the use of the past tense."

"We're both new here," he protested. "We don't know anybody else here and—"

"I don't want to know anybody else here, Liam!" she hissed. "That was kind of the point of moving in the first place. I didn't want—" Gwen looked down at her feet for a moment, sucking in a deep, calming breath, steeling her nerves. Dredging up the past never ended well, and Liam? He was a walking, talking representative of her past. But she wasn't going to lose her shit. Not here and not in front of him. When she glanced back up at him, the forlorn expression on his face made her stomach twist a bit. "It's a big school," she muttered quietly. "We'll be able to keep to ourselves just fine. Good luck, Liam."

And with one big pat on his shoulder, she pushed past him, continuing on her quest for Doritos. She could feel it though—his eyes on her back as she walked away. She didn't like the feeling twisting in the pit of her stomach. Guilt. She had no reason to feel guilty for brushing him off like that. Not after what he had done. Not after what he had been a part of. That twinge of guilt that she felt? It was overwhelmed by a hearty helping of bitterness. And that was the reason she didn't look back over her shoulder before turning the corner. But turning the corner didn't stop her from hearing the sound of a fist hitting the lockers. Several times.

It was strange how things could disintegrate. What once seemed so solid and tangible and absolutely perfect could just crumble into dust. It was strange to think that she had been happy once. Sure she still had all the memories, but they didn't feel like they were part of her life anymore. There was a physical line that could be drawn between then and now. Whenever she thought about her life before—whenever she pictured those memories in her head—it felt like she was staring at a photo album. One where all the pictures had aged a bit—worn and yellowed and generally reeking of nostalgia. Pictures of people laughing and smiling. Liam….he had been a fair number of pictures. But she had finished that photo album. She had closed the book on it.

The rest of the day passed without incident. Just the way she liked it. It was dedicated to droning teachers giving boring lectures, getting jostled in the hallway by crazed students, and developing scoliosis hauling around those ridiculously heavy backpacks. All of the normal, depressing things that teenagers are normally legally obligated to deal with.

When the final bell rang, Gwen faded into the tide of students. It was easy to become part of that ebb and flow. It was a good place to hide. She pulled her headphones over her ears and let the music wash over her, sapping away all the stress. She swapped the books out of her locker and continued on to the parking lot, navigating her way through the crowd until she found the way to Lydia's car. As per usual, the redhead was running late, so Gwen perched herself on the hood, sliding on her sunglasses before leaning back with her fingers laced behind her head.

The rays of the sun hit he face, soft and warm. She honestly could have fallen asleep there. Hell, she almost did. Her mind had been lulled into that place between sleeping and waking when all the sudden some unseen force swatted at her legs, shoving her feet from where they rested on the bumper. At the sudden loss of balance, Gwen gave a loud yelp and spasmed violently, rolling off the hood of the car and collapsing on the ground. When she opened her eyes the sun blinded her, the light washing out all her surroundings. The sounds of heels clacked against the ground next to her until the figure wearing them leaned forwards, blocking out the sun and allowing Gwen to see the red hair and judgmental look. "What have I told you about sitting on my car?" Lydia demanded. "You're going to scratch the paint."

Gwen let out a scoff and pushed herself back up to her feet, brushing off her clothes. "I'm fine, thanks for asking," she muttered. "That didn't hurt at all."

Lydia just rolled her eyes and fished her keys out of her purse, hitting the 'unlock' button and wordlessly slid into the driver's seat.

"I'm sorry, Gwen," Gwen said in the same pathetic, high-pitched voice she always used when she was imitating her cousin. "That was so insensitive of me. Are you alright? And by the way, your hair looks amazing like that! I love you sooooooooooooo much!"

"Are you done?" Lydia's actual voice demanded. "I want to get out of here before midnight. And your impression of me makes me sound like a kindergartener."

"Yeah," Gwen said bluntly. "It's supposed to."

Lydia let out a groan, a 'why me?' expression covering her face. "Just….just get in the car."

Grumbling to herself, Gwen yanked open the passenger door and collapsed into the passenger seat. There was still a little tension between them after their conversation this morning. Neither of them was particularly good at sharing, and every time they did open up it was usually followed by a silence. It was like they were putting distance between themselves and that conversation. The two of them stayed quiet as Lydia started the car. They stayed quiet as Lydia pulled out of the parking lot. Gwen didn't speak at all until they were over half way back to their house.

"I didn't read a book during lunch today."

The words hung in the air for a moment. Gwen's eyes flicked up to the rear view mirror only to find that Lydia's eyes were already there as well, the corners crinkling into a smile.

"Good."

**Alright! So there it is! Just so you know, technically this is all happening before 4x03. I'm starting episode 3 in the next chapter (giving Scott & friends a one day break between the Derek drama and the crazed serial killer drama).**

**Is Liam okay? I'm still not fully versed with his character, but I'm trying to keep him as in-character as possible. I mean yes he has a ton of swagger at some points, but he's also really vulnerable (as demonstrated by him crying while wrapped with duct tape). I thought him getting flustered by Gwen's surprise arrival was realistic.  
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**Also, I hope you are beginning to see the differences between Gwen and Charlie. They're both still sarcastic as hell, but I hope I'm showing that they're very different people.  
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**I really hope you guys like it. Gwen is kind of hostile to…well…everybody, but I hope you still enjoy her character. I hope this showed how she and Mason are going to become friends. She likes him a lot, but she's still trying to hold people at an arm's length. Violet and Garrett she's still not sure of. And Liam…drama! There's a lot of backstory there that I'm going to gradually show over time, but right now….shit went down back at Devenford (to be revealed). It's not necessarily that she hates/dislikes Liam. She just hasn't forgiven him yet. That combined with her new scary and defensive personality leads to bitchiness. I'm going for a character growth arc here. Does that make sense?**

**Anyhooties, please review. It makes me so very happy. And sorry if this chapter is shit. I've been working from 8:30am to 9:30-10:00pm for the last 2.5 weeks so I'm kinda exhausted. **


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